On Thursday, one tech-savvy nun has expressed her 'despair and frustration' after Pope Francis issued serious instructions that tell nuns that they should use social media applications 'with sobriety and discretion.'
The instructions were included in a document known as 'Cor Orans', which clears out the rules that cover monastic life. The document mentions 'social communications' rather than specific apps. However, a recent report by The Tablet reported that these social communications refer to Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
It also added that discretion should be applied to 'the quantity of the information and the type of communication,' as well as to the actual content of the media.
In response to the document, Sr. Catherine Wybourne, known to her 20,000 Twitter followers as 'Digital Nun', wrote on her blog: 'Of course, I agree with the need for discretion, but having been using social media for about ten years - probably longer than many of the clergy and others who felt it necessary to give nuns guidance on the matter - my main reaction is a mixture of despair and irritation.'
She further adds, 'Despair, because yet again the Vatican shows itself to be out of touch with the reality of women's (ie not just nuns') lives, and in seeking to control is in danger of losing whatever moral authority it still commands; irritation, because with all the world's problems, to devote time and energy to something that I think most nuns have already thought and prayed about sufficiently to have arrived at a sensible decision regarding its appropriate use, is embarrassing.
'It hurts to say I am embarrassed by the Church to which I belong and her heavy-handed approach to facets of modern life that she should be embracing, not condemning or viewing with suspicion.'
The instructions released in 2016 came after an order of nuns in northern Spain made headlines last month for making comments on Facebook regarding a controversial case in Pamplona which involved a group of men accused of gang rape who were given what many see as an unduly lenient sentence.
In Spanish, the Carmelite Nuns of Hondarribia defended the victim by pointing out that while they had made a free choice to live in a convent and live a life free from vices, she, too, was free to make her own choices.
The nuns wrote, 'Because it is a FREE decision, we will defend with all means available to us (and this is one) the right of all women to FREELY do the opposite without being judged, raped, intimidated or humiliated for it.'
However, some claim that the new document was not released as a result of that specific case. The BBC reported that the original rules for monastic life was already established in 1950 under the tenure of Pope Pius XII under the document, 'Sponsa Christi Ecclesia'. It was only expanded by Pope Francis through the 'Cor Orans' to include warnings against digital culture's 'decisive influence' on society.
Pope Francis had also noted that nuns should not let digital media 'become occasions for wasting time.'
