MADRID, 22 (EUROPE PRESS)
The initiative ‘The Church listens to you’, born from the hand of the Computer Network of the Church in Latin America, has presented to the General Secretariat of the Synod a document with the synthesis of the results obtained by a survey carried out by 244 Catholic influencers to through their social networks.
“Now we know that 30% of those who follow us do not go to church, but they are following a digital missionary,” said Maria Xiskya Valladares, a nun of Purity, one of the influencers who has participated in the initiative. “The more educated we are, the more we help the Holy Spirit continue to act on the Internet as well,” she insisted.
The text claims, in this way, that the network can be a “training channel of value and future” that can serve as a communication channel for evangelization. “The web makes it possible to reach the folds of so many lives of the People of God who feel lost,” says the document.
For this reason, they express the need to develop “a digital pastoral in an organic, systematic and institutional way” that promotes communion, participation and mission, as well as a reflection from Theology and Canon Law “as is done with catechists”, so that the influencers “be and feel part of the Body and the Mission of the Church”.
In this sense, the secretary of the Dicastery for Communication in the Vatican, Lucio Ruiz, has indicated that “the fact that 30% of those who have participated in the questionnaire are not believers, or are agnostics or alienated from the Church, It means a lot for the Church, it means that in these influencers or digital missionaries they find a friendly voice that they trust and through which they receive the caress of God”.
For the preparation of the document, 110,000 questionnaires have been carried out in 115 countries and in seven languages, and it has given rise to more than 150,000 synodal proposals. The respondents, with an average age of 40 years, have been both people who declare themselves Catholic or practicing as non-believers. For their part, of the influencers who have been part of the initiative, 27% are priests; 10%, religious; and 63% are catechists and committed lay people.
Among the results, it stands out that 67% of the Catholics surveyed feel in tune with Pope Francis and 37% ask for “an exemplary and courageous Church in its structures, attitudes and way of proceeding”. They also demand that the Church speak and act clearly “in the face of what appears to be unjustifiable, such as pedophilia, sexual abuse, contempt for women, corruption.” Regarding the liturgy, 20% consider that the masses are “boring”.
Regarding the suggestions for the future, the participants underlined, among others: promoting spirituality (silence, contemplation); accompany couples, families, separated and divorced people, people in poverty, migrants, LGTBI groups, ethnic groups and prisoners; and promote equality for women in society and the Church.