BENEDICT XVI: "THE TWO POLES OF THE HUMAN EXISTENCE: SOLITUDE AND COMMUNION"

"Today, new generations are exposed to a double risk, mainly due to the spreading of new information technologies. On one hand, the risk for one’s ability to think and to concentrate to be undermined at a personal level. On the other, that of a personal isolation in a reality which is becoming more and more virtual." This is what Pope Benedict XVI said today receiving in an audience professors, students and administrative staff of the university of Parma accompanied by Mgr Enrico Solmi and other authorities. After recalling the figure of St Peter Damian (who was first a student then a teacher in the city of Parma, he said) whose 1000 anniversary of birth has just been celebrated, Benedict XVI highlighted "the central characteristic of his personality, the happy synthesis of monastic life and ecclesial activity, the harmonic tension between the two main poles of human existence: solitude and communion”. (continued)