A binge and a prayer: Italian monks told to avoid Netflix and social media

The prior of a hermitage in Tuscany has urged monks living in the secluded retreat to avoid the use of social media and streaming services, arguing that their rooms are sacred places for prayer and “not for Netflix or other platforms”.Father Matteo Ferrari, the prior general of the Camaldolese congregation and of the Camaldoli monastery and hermitage in Arezzo, Tuscany, said such digital technologies were “specifically designed to create addiction” and “should absolutely be avoided”.Ferrari, 51, published a long letter on Facebook in which he said engaging with social media such as Instagram and TikTok and watching films online presented “a challenge for monastic and religious life”. He said: “We cannot pretend this challenge doesn’t exist.”The hermitage of Camaldoli, located in the middle of a national park and founded by Saint Romuald of Ravenna in the early 11th century, is home to nine monks. The main purpose of the retreat is for the monks to engage in prayer and sacred reading and, when in their individual rooms, to spend time in deep contemplation or meditation.“If the room is transformed into a cinema then where does our monastic and Romualdine spirituality end up?” Ferrari asked. He warned that real “cinephile addictions” exist, and could lead the monks to “becoming film experts rather than seekers of God”.He said it would be “much healthier” for monks to use their time alone “thinking about community moments”.In an interview with La Nazione, Tuscany’s regional newspaper, Ferrari said his goal was not to reproach the monks but to invite them to “meditate on a theme that pervades everyone’s life and cannot be ignored”.In 2022, the late Pope Francis urged seminarians to use social media “to advance, to communicate”, while warning them about the dangers, particularly digital pornography.“I will not say ‘raise your hand if you have had at least one experience of this’,” Francis said. “But if each of you think you have had the experience or temptation … It is a vice that so many people have. So many laymen, so many laywomen, and also priests and nuns.”