April 8, 2011. (Romereports.com) The Vatican has called a meeting with bloggers from around the world on May 2, the day after the beatification of John Paul II. It will consist of two sessions meant to share experiences with representatives of the Church and the Vatican to learn first hand the needs of the blogging community.

Card. Gianfranco Ravasi
President, Pontifical Council for Culture
“It's one of the most popular forms of communication among young people, a kind of network that spans the globe. So we would like the Christian word, the Christian dimension to be present among them. We wanted to organize to take advantage of the beatification of John Paul II, because we imagine that there will be a strong presence of Catholic bloggers in this area. We refer to them but we also hope to repeat this with non-believers.”

The first session will feature bloggers from five different languages. The second will include those involved in the communication strategies of the Church, who will present their experiences of working in new media.

The Vatican hopes the meeting will serve to establish new contacts and friends, as well as opening new avenues of communication with people familiar with the blogosphere.

The meeting is open to anyone but there are only 150 seats. If you're interested in participating send an email as soon as possible to blogmeet@pccs.it with a link to your blog.