A 'friend' in cyberspace may be nothing more than a casual link - or someone who becomes your partner for life!

In this year's World Communications Day Message, Pope Benedict XVI explores the nature of friendship as a participation in God’s communicative and unifying love, and looks at how new technologies can help or hinder friendship.  

Sandie Cornish
Editor

"The desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our very nature as human beings and cannot be adequately understood as a response to technical innovations. In the light of the Biblical message, it should be seen primarily as a reflection of our participation in the communicative and unifying Love of God, who desires to make of all humanity one family. When we find ourselves drawn towards other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God's call - a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion."
Benedict XVI, World Communications Day Message 2009.