Well. After having begged and cajoled people all over the Episcopal Church to take their proclamation of the Gospel to the new crossroads of our age, it appears the big reinforcements are taking the field.

Pope Benedict, addressing the faithful on the Roman Catholic Church’s Day of Communications writes (according to Reuters):

“‘Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources — images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites — which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis,’ he said.

Priests, he said, had to respond to the challenge of ‘today’s cultural shifts’ if they wanted to reach young people.

But Benedict warned priests not to strive to become stars of new media. ‘Priests present in the world of digital communications should be less notable for their media savvy than for their priestly heart,’ he said.”

Read the full article here.

So, you evangelists and theologians out there, what are you waiting for? An invitation from the Pope? Done!

(And parenthetically I’ll add that priest will not only reach the young by communicating online. The fastest growing segment of Facebook is the boomers and hero generation folks.)