Pope Francis urged students last week to put away their cellphones at meal time, the latest in his lessons against letting technology drive people away from human interactions.
“When we’re at the table, when we are speaking to others on our telephones, it’s the start of war because there is no dialogue,” Pope Francis told students at Roma Tre in Rome, according to the New York Post and People.
Though the Pope has been friendly to new technology, even using an Instagram account and posing for selfies, he has often warned about how the addiction to devices is stopping us from making important connections.
In September of 2016, the Pope delivered a similar message during his homily at the chapel of the Santa Marta in Vatican City, pushing for people “to strive for this culture of the encounter, just as simply as Jesus did so,” according to the Catholic News Agency.
“In our families, at the dinner table, how many times while eating, do people watch the TV or write messages on their cell phones. Each one is indifferent to that encounter. Even within the heart of society, which is the family, there is no encounter,” Pope Francis said.
Happiness, the Pope told teenagers in 2016, is not “an app that you can download on your phones, nor will the latest update bring you freedom and grandeur in love,” according to The Associated Press.
In November of 2015 in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope urged families to communicate at the dinner table.
“A family that rarely eats together, or a family where no one speaks, opting instead to watch television or look at smartphones, is not much of a family,” the Pope said, according to Rome Reports.
“Families should speak at the table. They should listen. No silence! I’m not talking about a reflective silence, this silence is one of selfishness. Everyone does their own thing. One watches television, someone is on the computer and no one talks. No! No more silence. Let’s restore family interaction.”
In 2014, Pope Francis told a group of 50,000 altar servers to not waste time on unimportant things.
“Perhaps many young people waste too much time in useless things: chatting on the internet or with your mobile phone, the products of technology that should simplify and improve the quality of life, but sometimes take away from what is really important,” the Pope said, according to Catholic Online.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
