Pre-release notice: material that should interest all
Salesians, communicators at heart and by charism
CYBERSPACE: 6th September 2006 -- In just 10 days time, a
click on your net-connected computer will offer you a real first, a
developing work by a committed Catholic communicator, globally
acknowledged systems engineer, promoter of Free and Open Source
Software, family man, good friend of the Salesians and supporter of our
communications charism, Marco Fioretti. Marco will be releasing
his major work for forming ordinary folk of their role in active
citizenship in a digital world. The work will be entitled The
family Guide to Digital Freedom.
The Family Guide is not a software manual, requires
no technical knowledge, but it is a knowledgeable, reflective and
important appeal to mums, dads, older citizens, educators to rethink,
and act on the basis of hopefully newfound convictions. He writes
out of long and personal reflection based on wide experience in the
digital world (he lived and worked in Silicon Valley during the DotCom
Boom - and bust), survived both, then brought the family back to Rome,
where he has now teamed up with other committed laity and clergy to
study and act on the basis of Church teaching on 'social
communications' informed by pragmatic experience in what most would
regard as a thoroughly secular field. He has the ability to come
over as easily and convincingly as a Bill Gates or a Richard Stallman
(the one an IT philanthropist who needs no introduction, the other a
Free Software 'apostle' who has also described himself privately as a
'scientific atheist'!). In other words Marco does not 'preach' -
he simply tells you how things are, why they could be different, and
suggests what you could do to act on that. While I have not as
yet read everything he will be making available, I have talked face to
face with and corresponded with Marco sufficiently to know what he will
be saying. He will be telling us how to act at home, at work,
with our money, our work or our vote, to make sure that our true
interests, and those of our children, pupils, in our Salesian case
'those to whom we are sent', are protected and advanced.
The guide will be published in October or November
in English, with other languages to follow quickly. But of particular
interest will be a website associated with the book. This will be
made accessible on 16th September. Expect a further austraLasia
that day to give you the URL and urge you to follow up at that point.
This is also a good opportunity to point to some
unusual other recommended reading for all Salesians! The English
edition of the weekly L'Osservatore Romano n. 34, 23 August
2006. It contains a centre spread (yes with colour photos too!) written
by a member of a relatively new religious society in the Church,
founded in Kerala in 1968, The Missionary Society of St Thomas the
Apostle. I personally believe this is the most significant
'ecclesial' comment I have read in recent times on the importance of
communications as an integral part of mission and ministry! That
is some claim - and you may ask where does it leave Inter Mirifica,
Rapid Development, SSCS and a dozen other major statements of
great churchmen and movements? It doesn't 'leave' them at all -
it takes them on to a new plane: it clarifies theological thinking and
should offer every Salesian some ideas that we know from experience to
be inherently true - communications ('social' variety, as the Church
insists) are not best described simply as media or means, not as
instruments, not even as inculturation. Instead communication is
the defining factor in creating new culture and establishing
meanings. That changes the way we evangelize. Read it,
please. Once you survive the first two columns, it is all new and
interesting stuff!
___________________
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