Thou Shalt Not Text Until Easter, Italians Told

Or, put another way, the Italian branch of the Roman Catholic Church wants its followers to forswear text messaging, social-networking Web sites and computer games in the run-up to Easter.

While many Italians traditionally give up fatty foods or, in extremis, alcohol, the appeal to go without some of the trappings of the modern world, including Facebook, iPhones and computer games, on Fridays — and on other days if possible — is unprecedented.

It appears to stem partly from Pope Benedict XVI's recent warning to the young not to substitute "virtual friendship" for real human relationships.

The Pontiff warned on his YouTube site in January that "obsessive" use of mobile phones or computers "may isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development."

Pope Benedict also has personal experience of the distractions of obsessive texting. President Sarkozy of France, a renowned technophile, came in for withering criticism for checking his mobile phone for text messages during a personal audience with the Pontiff.

The "stop texting for Lent" campaign began in the dioceses of Modena, Bari and Pesaro but has now spread to other parts of Italy.

CNET has a bit more to say on this story:

Before you scoff at Catholics or Italians or just men who wear purple, please listen to the Monsignor [Benito Cocchi, the Archbishop of Modena, Italy]'s argument. It is an interesting one. He explains that he is not merely preaching to the converted (and the fans of the Da Vinci Code), those who simply adore the pain of a little self-sacrifice. He is looking to end a war.
There's a crucial element in the manufacture of cell phones, laptops and the like called columbite-tantalite (or coltan). It is a rare mineral that finds its home mainly in the Eastern Congo.
A representative of the Catholic Missionary Center in Modena, Francesco Panigadi, told the London Times that profits from the coltan trade were being used to finance a war that is one of the "worst conflicts in modern African history. Eighty per cent of coltan comes from Kivu, the region of Congo where a civil war has cost four million lives in ten years."
This war is very, very nasty. It involves (not exclusively) Hutus and Tutsis, the same incendiary pairing that resulted in the massive Rwandan genocide.

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