Archbishop calls digital world new mission territory

By CBCP News

MANILA — The digital world is a ‘new mission territory’ where people already live, work and search for meaning, a Philippine archbishop said Saturday.

Archbishop Rex Andrew Alarcon of Caceres urged Catholic digital missionaries across Asia to bring the Gospel into online spaces with discernment, critical thinking and a strong sense of community.

“The new mission territory is not the seas, not the air, but the digital sphere,” Alarcon said. “Not a parallel world, but a world where we live in. We are already there.”

Alarcon, chairman of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Social Communications, spoke during Mass on the second day of the first Asian Catholic Digital Missionary Assembly at Radio Veritas Asia headquarters in Quezon City.

The Sept. 11-13 gathering brings together Catholic digital missionaries, communicators and content creators from across Asia to reflect on the Church’s mission in an increasingly digital culture.

Alarcon said digital spaces have become places where people form opinions, build relationships, encounter information and search for meaning, making them part of everyday human life.

He warned that rapid technological change, particularly artificial intelligence, raises new ethical questions and should not replace human judgment.

“We are now outsourcing our intelligence,” Alarcon said, urging digital missionaries not to “relegate our thinking to the machines.”

He called for “critical feeling,” which he described as recognizing emotions while allowing reflection and discernment to guide responses to online content.

Social media can quickly trigger anger, fear, outrage, admiration, envy or amusement, he said, challenging Christians to consider whether their online presence leads people toward truth and compassion.

But digital mission should not focus only on influence, followers or content, Alarcon said. It should also help build communities rooted in Christian faith.

“An invitation for us is not only to influence others, but also to form communities,” he said. “We are called to be a Church.”

The assembly ends Sunday with a Mass to be presided over by Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, vice president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.