Pinoy bishops join Asian meet on social media networking

Filipino Catholic bishops joined a six-day meeting that began on November 14 in Taiwan to discuss ways of using social communication such as Facebook and Twitter in their pastoral ministry. A report of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said the meeting of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) included eight bishops, eight priests and more than 12 lay and religious ministers from 10 countries. The meeting was held at the St. Paul’s Pastoral Center in Hualien, around 200 kilometers from Taipei. Fr. Stephen Cuyos from the Philippines was the main resource speaker during the meeting which had the theme “Social Networking for Pastoral Ministry." Cuyos talked about the process of social networking, visual story-telling, virtual interaction, and other online resources that can be used for pastoral ministry. Quoting the Vatican document "Communio et Progressio," Bishop Chacko Thottumarickal, chairman of the Office of Social Communication of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC-OSC), said using social media was part of obeying Jesus Christ's command to spread the Good News. “It would be difficult to suggest that Christ’s command was being obeyed unless all the opportunities offered by the modern media to extend to vast numbers of people the announcement of his Good News were being used," the bishop said in the CBCP report. - VVP, GMA News