Facebook as a monastic place? The new use of internet by Catholic monks

Abstract

The new use of the internet by Catholic monks A lthough Catholic monasteries are theoretically out of the world, monks and nuns more and more use the internet, both for religious and nonreligious reasons. While society at large often takes it for granted that monks are out of modernity, monastic communities have been adopted this media from relatively early on, and we cannot say that they have come late to its use. The internet can offer monasteries a lot of advantages because it allows monks to be in the world without going out of the cloister. Nevertheless, the introduction of this new media in monasteries also raises a lot of questions about the potential contradictions it poses with other aspects of monastic life.This paper does not deal with online religious practices, but seeks to research the use of the medium by monks and nuns even in their daily lives, and attempts especially to investigate the potential changes it brings to monastic life.Having explained how monks and nuns use the internet in their daily lives, I will endeavour to explore how it can also endanger some dimensions of monastic life, as well as how monks respond to this potential threat. As a particularly striking example -because it reopens a lot of questions also asked about the internet in general -I have chosen to explore the use of the social network Facebook by monks. This article is based on field inquiries made in French and Austrian monasteries between 2009 and the present, including interviews conducted with monks and nuns, as well as a study of the monastic websites and Facebook pages, in particular 50 profiles of Austrian nuns and monks.I am speaking specifically here about nuns and monks, so about religious people living in a contemplative monastery, not about apostolic orders which are already in the world even if the distinction is not always so clear.

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