Vatican warns of the corrupting influence of mobile phones and the internet on our souls

By Simon Caldwell for MailOnline
Updated: 20:45 EST, 24 November 2008


Father Federico Lombardi

'Grave threat': The Pope's spokesman Father Federico Lombardi has warned people risk losing their souls if they overuse the internet and their mobiles

Mobiles are bad for your soul, the Vatican warned yesterday.

Phones and computers are making the world so noisy and hectic that people cannot cultivate their spiritual dimension.

And without a spiritual life 'you will lose your soul', said Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope's spokesman.

The Jesuit priest, who is the director of the Vatican press office, made his remarks on the weekly Vatican TV programme Octavia Dies.

He said that modern advances in technology had made the world so noisy and hectic that many people were now in danger of allowing their souls to perish.

He was seeking to emphasise the necessity and value of the cloistered religious life, especially in the modern world.

'In the age of the mobile phone and the internet it is probably more difficult than before to protect silence and to nourish the interior dimension of life,' said Fr Lombardi. 'It is difficult but necessary.

'Today this is a very grave threat, and it is the most irreparable misfortune,' he said, adding that if the spiritual dimension of a person was not guarded and nourished or it could 'become barren to the point of drying up and, indeed, dying.

'Reflection, meditation, contemplation are as necessary as breathing,' he said.

'In the age of the mobile phone and the internet it is more difficult than before to protect silence and so nourish the interior dimension of life. It is difficult but necessary.'

He added: 'For believers, dialogue with God is developed in this dimension of prayer - life in the spirit, which is more important than physical life itself.

'Jesus told us not to fear those who can kill the body as much as the ones who can destroy our soul.'

“For believers, in this dimension prayer, dialogue with God is developed, life  in the spirit, which is more important that physical life itself. Jesus told us  not to fear those who can kill the body as much as the one who can destroy our  soul.

“What is true for the individual person, is true for the community of the  Church, true for humanity," he said

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