Friendship

I've read bits and pieces of what Pope Benedict has been saying about the digital age, but here is a more complete statement that I ran across.  He talks about a " . . . .   fundamental desire of people to communicate and to relate to each other. This desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our very nature as human beings and cannot be adequately understood as a response to technical innovations."        

On the subject of friendship, here are a couple excerpts:  

The concept of friendship has enjoyed a renewed prominence in the vocabulary of the new digital social networks that have emerged in the last few years. The concept is one of the noblest achievements of human culture. It is in and through our friendships that we grow and develop as humans. For this reason, true friendship has always been seen as one of the greatest goods any human person can experience. We should be careful, therefore, never to trivialize the concept or the experience of friendship. 

Friendship is a great human good, but it would be emptied of its ultimate value if it were to be understood as an end in itself. Friends should support and encourage each other in developing their gifts and talents and in putting them at the service of the human community.

The Pope is never trivial, even when talking about Facebook or Twitter. He manages to go from cyberspace to the early Church and pull it all together.