A Message from Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil

Communications Media is a powerful tool which no one today can ignore.  It has penetrated even the life of an ordinary person living in the remotest corner of the poorest of countries.  One has to admit that this has its advantages as well as disadvantages, positive as well as negative impacts.  In order to withstand the negative impact, one has to catch hold of the positive impact and make good use of it so that the negative impact could be reduced to the minimum.  The Church considers it her duty to venture upon this advanced field of information technology.  Pope John Paul II, in his apostolic letter of 24 January 2005, the Rapid Development, says: “In fact, the Church is not only called upon to use the mass media to spread the Gospel but, today more than ever, to integrate the message of salvation into the "new culture" that these powerful means of communication create and amplify. It tells us that the use of the techniques and the technologies of contemporary communications is an integral part of its mission in the third millennium.”  The ultimate goal of this enterprise is to “communicate the message of Christ's hope, grace and love, keeping always alive, in this passing world, the eternal perspective of heaven, a perspective which no communications medium can ever directly communicate, "What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).”  Pope Benedict XVI in his message for the 41^st World Communication Day, issued on 24 January 2007, states that the Church desires to share a vision of human dignity that is central to all worthy human communication. "Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave" (Deus Caritas Est, 18). 

It is with this vision of sharing Christ with a wider audience spread across the entire world and bringing them to the richness of his message manifested in the living tradition of the Church, especially in the Syro-Malabar Church that the Syro-Malabar Bishops’ Synod decided to launch a new web-site of its own.  It is an effective means of communication between the Church and the world, between the Hierarchy and the other members, and among the various sections of the people of God.  I wish and pray that this website being launched here with the name ‘the Syro-Malabar Church Internet Mission’ be able to bring about better communication not only among the members of the Syro-Malabar Church, but also between the Syro-Malabar Church and the various churches of the Catholic communion and their members so also the members of various religions and the world at large.  I welcome you to the website of the Syro-Malabar Church and wish you a very enriching experience of the rich traditions and spiritual heritage of the Syro-Malabar Church.

I wish the website every success.

Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil