Blog 3 - Vatican Authority

Examining authority within an institution gives insight into how their beliefs, rules, boundaries and ideologies are created and communicated with their community. Authority within the catholic church follows a hierarchical order. Along with the most basic order of hierarchical authority, there is the Vatican Council II. The council has and continues to play a “central role in the Church’s path toward its future in the modern world” (Faggioli, 2012). The future is one that necessitates the use of media. Media is the most efficient way to spread information to the masses and much of this media is now being carried out in the form of social media. The current Vatican Council as well as the Pope, who hold the most authority, are beginning to utilize social media as a platform for spreading information and ideas. According to Robert Bonnot, the current council is “devoted to the ‘mass media’, which the Vatican calls ‘instruments of social communication’” (2003, p. 90). The Pope has also taken on this more modern mindset and created a twitter for himself. This modern use of media is likely to continue to spread throughout the entirety of the catholic church because these figures of authority are using it, making media acceptable for all branches of the church. This image is of Vatican City. Vatican City is where the Pope reside and is seen as the center of authority for this reason. When examining the Pope’s personal twitter account, there are images of him in front of the building featured in this picture. A backdrop such as this one being seen on the Pope’s twitter sheds a light of modernism on the Pope himself, the Vatican, and the Catholic Church as a whole. When authority figures begin to change, this change trickles down to those who submit to this authority, which can be seen with the Pope, the Vatican Council, and the Catholic Church.

References

Bonnot, R. (2003). The media as wondrous gifts of God, given for our sanctification. Inter Mirifica at 40. 90-94.

Faggioli, M. (2012). Vatican II: The battle for meaning. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Retrieved from https://books.google.it/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pS2ylKlDc_YC&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=role+of+vatican+council&ots=Dt1y0XArLM&sig=DpXSAn7PNALb9IynL6Odb30v7ko&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=role%20of%20vatican%20council&f=false