MANILA, Sept. 10, 2012?A Catholic priest from the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart urged young people to use social media as a wholesome tool for communication during a social media summit held September 8 and 9.
Sacred Heart priest Fr. Stephen Cuyos, reminds young people to use social media for evangelization by posting and sharing wholesome texts, photos and videos.
Tech savvy Fr. Stephen Cuyos, MSC, said that social media and the need for this popular tool for communication can be used in many ways but should remain wholesome.
“There are lots of things that you can do in the world of social networking or the social media. But use it well like sharing photos or videos of Gospel message so you young people can focus on videos or photos about peace, love, charity and evangelization,” Cuyos said.
The priest emphasized that they should be careful in posting, sharing, and liking status and pictures, because all information entered in the internet are saved in the sites’ server and could be used by the social networking sites its purposes.
In a separate interview with YouthPinoy, the priest also explained the do’s and dont’s in using social media.
“I think the principle is, always know that whatever you post might be made public very quickly and could stay online forever. That means if you want to post, the do is that you post wonderful things, such as positive words that could help other people. Don’t post anything that will put yourself and other people at risk online; that’s basically the main idea,” Cuyos furthered.
Some 300 high school students who are staffers of student publications in different public schools in NCR participated in the CFAM Youth Social Media Summit. 
Among the speakers were experts in the field of social communication such as Sky Ortigas of YouthPinoy, Fr. Stephen Cuyos, MSC, of the Communication Foundation for Asia (CFA), Alemberg Ang and Martha Vinzons.
Organized by the Catechetical Foundation of the Archdiocese of Manila, the event was held two months after the nationwide 1st Catholic Social Media Summit organized by the CBCP Media Office together with YouthPinoy, the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Youth, CBCP Commission on Mission and San Pedro Calungsod lay-movement +Big. (Jandel Posion)
