The Church and the internet

E Since its launch in 1995, the Vatican website has become an important source of information about the Catholic Church, and is available in six languages (English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portuguese) 17 In 1998 John Paul II participated in the first ever internet video broadcast, or webcast, by a pope F In 2002 John Paul II said that 'for the Church the new world of cyberspace is a summons to the great adventure of using its potential to proclaim the Gospel message'
In the same year, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications issued a document on 'The Church and the Internet', which suggested that the virtues of prudence. justice, fortitude and temperance 'need to be cultivated by everyone who wants to make good use of the Internet'
ii In 2003, the great scholar St Isidore of Seville was proposed as patron saint of the internet.
E Benedict XVI was given a pubric e-mail address shortly after his election in April 2005. The address for messages in English is benedictxvi@ vatican.va 7, In September 2006 Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, became the first member of the College of Cardinals to write a web log. or blog In November 2006 the Vatican website came under attack from online Islamist terrorists. who distributed programmes to dozens of hackers around the world in order to stage a multipronged attack on the site as Pope Benedict XVI visited Turkey