Pope Francis meets with committee of Nobel Prize for Literature

In a meeting with members of the Swedish Academy, Pope Francis recognized the risk which social media presents to promoting dialogue in contemporary culture.

POPE FRANCIS
The pervasive growth of social media risks replacing dialogue with a mess of monologues, often aggressive in tone. Social dialogue, instead, involves the ability to respect the other’s point of view with sincerity and without deceit.

He then explained that society must pursue dialogue while rooted in truth, such as the dignity of human beings, and not fall into relativism.

POPE FRANCIS
Dialogue is not synonymous with relativism. Indeed, society is all the more noble whenever it cultivates the search for truth and is rooted in fundamental truths, and especially when it acknowledges that “every human being possesses an inalienable dignity.” Believers and nonbelievers alike can agree on this principle.

The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 to promote the Swedish language, and is comprised of linguists, writers, and other academics. Each year they present the Nobel Prize in Literature to an outstanding author from any country.