On Twitter and a Prayer

    I think it’s a great idea that the Pope has created a new twitter account in attempts to reach out to the youth. The youth’s attention to the Catholic Church is constantly decreasing due to immense distractions in our society- one of them being social networking. Social networking is an incredibly addictive and entertaining asset our society possesses with over 10 billion users and majority of them being teenagers. Since teenagers do not normally pay attention to the news or the newspaper, they can follow up with the Pope’s new happenings through twitter.

            As can be seen, this can be extremely beneficial to our faith. The youth is a large percentage of our catholic community so it is extremely vital that they are able to participate and keep updated about the church/pope’s latest happening on a site there are familiar and comfortable with. The only disadvantages that this may possess are the “haters/cyber-bullies.” Having our own Pope on twitter will give critics more reasons to criticize our faith. Some cyber-bullies or Anti-Christ supporters will be able to determine who the Catholics are and even go to the extent of sending horrible messages to the Pope’s followers.

            My parish does not take part in the social media world as we still continue to use printed out newsletters, and verbal information. However, I do have friends that attend parishes who have Facebook groups so that the regulars who attend that particular parish are able to keep up with frequent updates and even mass times.

            There are several other ways that will encourage the youth to get more involved in the Church. We can attend Church’s that give messages that interest people and are relevant to our actions today (I admit at times I fall asleep in Church, due to the long messages that are difficult to understand). We can also have our Churches use social media networking sites as teens are online majority of the time. Lastly, we can help our children attend camps that involve the message of God but are also allow you to participate in enticing activities such as canoeing or hiking.

I follow Pope Francis on twitter!