:
Digital Age challenges and consecrated life

Summary: In the Year of Consecrated Life (2015), this article analyzes the challenges which the new digital age presents to human beings and, more specifically, to the consecrated life. The new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are already unavoidably embedded in our daily life. “Our perception of self, others and the world are influenced by them”. It is therefore necessary for consecrated brothers and sisters to inhabit the new digital environment with the style that best fits to their religious life and mission.
 

Sommario: Tenendo presente l'Anno della Vita Consacrata (2015), questo articolo propone uno studio sulle sfide che l’era digitale presenta allo sviluppo dell’essere umano e più concretamente ai consacrati. Le nuove tecnologie della comunicazione sono ormai una componente ineludibile della nostra vita e “dall’influsso che esercitano dipende la percezione di noi stessi, degli altri e del mondo”. Bisogna quindi che i consacrati imparino ad abitare questo nuovo ambiente con lo stile loro proprio per rendere ragione della loro Speranza.
 

Sumario: Teniendo presente el Año de la Vida Consagrada (2015), este artículo propone un estudio de los desafíos que la nueva cultura digital presenta al desarrollo del ser humano y, más específicamente, a los consagrados. Las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación forman ya parte ineludible de nuestra vida, y de ellas depende "la percepción de nosotros mismos, de los otros y del mundo". Por tanto, los consagrados tienen que aprender a habitar este nuevo ambiente cultural con el estilo que les caracteriza, para dar razón de su esperanza.

INDEX

1. SPACE TO INHABIT
1.1. Access to the Internet in religious communities
1.2. The priest and the parish in the digital age

2. THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT CHALLENGES
2.1. Uprooted and caught in the Net
2.2. More connected but more alone
2.3. Simulacrum and narcissism
2.4. Hyper-connected and hyper-accelerated
2.5. Depersonalizing superficiality

3. SKILLED TO BE FREE IN A DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT
3.1. Overcoming the dependency on approval
3.2. From a self-centered information to narration
3.3. The specificity of formation in the consecrated life

4. DEVELOPING A MATURE, ACTIVE AND SENSIBLE INTERIORITY
4.1. Silence and the "murmuring solitude"
4.2. Retreat and enclosure

5. EVANGELIZATION AND HUMAN RELATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE
5.1. A peculiar style of inhabiting the digital space
5.2. Firsthand witnesses
5.3. The attractive charm of the beautiful

CONCLUSION