By Fr Henry Adler SVD

Provincial Superior

I love technology. It’s hard to remember now how I organised myself without the help of my digital diary, which I access on my iPad or phone. Boy, does it make life easy.

These days we hold meetings by video conference to save on airfares. And we are about to step up our communications by offering a refreshed new website and an SVD App.

The free App, to be launched in coming weeks, will help you stay in touch with all the latest happenings in the SVD AUS Province, with updates coming to your phone or other digital device. There’ll be news and calendar items for upcoming events. You’ll also be able to support our mission work by donating securely straight from your phone. We see it as just one way among many to reach out in conversation to you, our Partners in Mission, and we hope you’ll enjoy it too.

In this month’s edition of In the News, you’ll also read about how the Divine Word University in Papua New Guinea is now using a drone in its Communications School to bring back video from a birds-eye vantage point. Not a bad idea in a nation where rough terrain can often curtail communications efforts. What a fabulous way to connect people.

And in a world which is becoming both increasingly connected and increasingly isolated, thanks to technology, it’s good to step back and see that connecting people is really what it’s all about.
Technology is not an end in itself. We’re all familiar with being in a train carriage or on a bus when we notice that everybody around us is either staring at or listening to their phone. Conversation almost seems to be a lost art. Parents are scrolling through their phones while their children vie for their attention and teenagers are living their lives in this virtual reality. Indeed, for them, the virtual reality is now actual reality. It’s how they maintain their friendships and its where they find their entertainment.

Pope Francis recently challenged us all to spend as long each day reading the Bible as we do looking at our phones. That was certainly a good reality check for me. Looks like I’d better extend my Bible reading time a little!

Technology has its positives and negatives, to be sure. But as long as we keep in mind that its primary use is to keep us connected, to create opportunities for the genuine, face-to-face contact that helps us build and maintain human relationships, then we can be confident that it is serving us well.

Jesus gave us the great commission to “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”. Technology helps us to do that, but it will never replace the personal sharing of Christ’s love that lies at the heart of Mission.