Vatican to Host First-Ever Blogging Conference
Attention, bloggers. The Vatican wants you.
On May 2, the Vatican will host its first-ever conference in Rome for bloggers, especially Catholics. It’s being sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Councils for Culture and for Social Communications. The gathering will take place the day after the beatification of Pope John Paul II.
“The aim of the meeting is to allow for a dialogue between bloggers and Church representatives, to listen to the experiences of those who are actively involved in this arena, and to achieve a greater understanding of the needs of that community,” the Pontifical Councils for Culture and for Social Communications said in a statement.
During the morning session of the conference, five bloggers representing five languages – Italian, English, Spanish, French and Polish – will speak, according to CatholicCulture.org. In the afternoon, Vatican officials will reflect on blogging and the Roman Catholic Church.
“An important dimension of the meeting is to allow an opportunity for informal exchange and contact between those attending with a view to opening further avenues of interaction,” according to Vatican Radio.
The Vatican said attendance is open to 150 bloggers from “the entire blogosphere,” not just Catholic bloggers.
Richard Rouse, an official at the Pontifical Council for Culture, told Vatican Radio: “One of the things we are a little bit aware of is that sometimes the Catholic blogosphere can become a bit of a ghetto … rather than engaging in the world outside.”
Rouse said he knows the meeting might be different from others hosted by the Vatican. “Certainly, we are aware that a blog meeting can sometimes be a blog-fest and sometimes it can be a blog-fight,” he said.
If you’re a blogger interested in attending the conference, send a link to your blog to blogmeet@pccs.it.
Among those participating in blogging conference will be Cardinals Gianfranco Ravasi and Claudio Celli, who lead the culture and social communications councils, and the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office.
In an interview posted on RomeReports.com, Ravasi said blogging is “one of the most popular forms of communication among young people, a kind of network that spans the globe. So we would like the Christian word, the Christian dimension to be present among them.”
Follow Technorati