Media can promote peace, Archbishop Foley tells information summit

Published: 2003-12-15

GENEVA (CNS) -- Radio, television and the Internet can promote peace and understanding by helping the world's people know each other better and by sensitizing people to the suffering of others, U.S. Archbishop John P. Foley told the World Summit on the Information Society. The archbishop, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, spoke Dec. 11 at the Geneva summit organized by the International Telecommunications Union with the support of the United Nations. Archbishop Foley praised delegates for passing a resolution calling for efforts to ensure the media are not used to promote racism, intolerance, violence, pedophilia and child pornography. He also encouraged efforts to narrow the "digital divide" separating countries where there is widespread access to the Internet and where there is almost none either because of poverty or government efforts to restrict citizens' access to information.

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