Booklet: 'Living in the Digital Age'

' Living in the Digital Age ' (A Christian Recipe for Authentic Human Development) CTS Explanations. By Jean Pierre Casey.

'He is before all things
and in Him all things hold together.' Col. Ch. 1 v17.

As I prepared to pen this review the sad news came through of the passing away of Stephen Hawking. A hero of mine in that he used his great intellectual gifts to enlighten and progress humanity. At he same time he endured stoically a terrible sickness. He once stated that if he discovered the origin of the universe then he would know the mind of God. He knows now. May he Rest In Peace.

Jean Pierre's pamphlet fits in with this theme. The subtitle ( A Christian Recipe for Authentic Human Development ) is a subject that needs our intense forensic examination at this time. CTS Explanations is a start. The question facing authentic humanity is not whether technology takes over humans but rather what will we humans do with the great gifts that God has given to us. What troubles us in the depths of our souls is whether we will survive as humans of destroy ourselves. More succinctly put-is it Annihilation - we certainly have the means at our disposal. The moral choice is ours.

That great prophet George Orwell said it way back. In his masterpiece ' Nineteen Eighty Four ' He saw that the future of humanity was at stake. Could we, in a digital age, save our race ?. Winston works in the ' Ministry of Truth.' And the three slogans of the Ministry of Truth are -War Is Peace -Freedom Is Slavery-Ignorance Is Strength. The whole book is about the quest to control and dehumanise society by the few. Winston tells Julia in one of their conversations ' So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.'

We Catholics know, or should know that there is no Authentic Humanity apart from Christ. That is the meaning of Incarnation. St Paul knew it as did St Augustine as did St Therese of Lisieux. Because He became human - born of the Virgin Mary- every human person if sacred. Or to put it another way- every human person born into this world is an object of God's Love revealed in Christ. That is our Ministry of Truth and our Authentic Humanity. This is what we must do and teach in this Digital Age. Then we will have less fear and more love.

Pope Francis, to my mind one of the most Christocentric Popes since Peter, sees this clearly and does it. The Person is what matters...People ..People ..People.

'We are servants of the word of salvation
We are servants of the word of eternal life
We are servants of the word of reconciliation
We are servants of the word that 'went out' from God and ' was made flesh'
We are servants of the word of Truth.

(Address to the delegation of the Church Relations Committee of the United Bible Societies in October 2017.)

Jean Pierre deals with the Technology and it's dangers and it's positive possibilities for the future. CTS and Jean are to be commended for such a valuable contribution.