Vatican to prepare new document on media

VATICAN CITY - It's been 17 years since the last pastoral instruction on the means of communication, and it's time for an update, according to Benedict XVI's secretary of state.

The pope acknowledged that January's lifting of the 1988 excommunication of the four Society prelates caused a "discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time," and that the situation could have been avoided if the Vatican had paid more attention to the Internet as a source of information.

Referring to the scandal caused by bishop Richard Williamson, who appeared on Swedish television denying the extent of the Holocaust days before the decree was made public, the Pope wrote: "I have been told that attentive following of the news accessible on Internet would have given the possibility of timely awareness of the problem. From it I draw the lesson that, in the future, we in the Holy See will have to pay more attention to this source of news."

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, said a new document of pastoral guidance for the Church's communicative commitment is necessary, as the last document of these characteristics -- "Aetatis Novae" -- was issued in 1992.

"The 17 years that have passed represent a very long parenthesis for the rate of development and growth of the media: It is the period in which a series of small and great revolutions have matured that, as a constant current, have radically transformed the pre-existing scene," said Cardinal Bertone.