In an increasingly connected world, not even the centuries-old isolation of hermitages is immune to the challenges of Wi-Fi. The Prior General of the Camaldolese Congregation of the Order of Saint Benedict, Don Matteo Ferrari, has issued an official statement addressed to his peers warning about the impact of the use of smartphonessocial networks and platforms streaming in religious life.
In a letter published on Facebook, which Diário de Notícias consulted, and according to Ferrari’s interview with the regional newspaper The Nationcited by the British newspaper The Guardian in news published this Tuesday, 17th, the prior general of the congregation of hermits argues that technologies such as Instagram, TikTok and Netflix were “specifically designed to create dependence” and represent a frontal challenge to Romualdine spirituality.
The Cell as “Paradise”, not as Cinema
In the original document dated February 2, 2026, sent from the Sacred Eremo of Camaldoli, which DN consulted, Prior Ferrari evokes the Little Rule (Little Rule) by Saint Romuald, founder of the order in the 11th century: “Sit in your cell as in Paradise. Forget the world and throw it behind your back.”
The prior questions the viability of this precept in the digital age: “Could the cell, a place of listening, prayer and a life of wisdom, be transformed into a place of dispersion, waste of time, escape from oneself and one’s own inner tensions?”, says the statement. Ferrari warns of the risk of the cell becoming “an individual and individualistic cinema”where spirituality is lost in favor of a “cinephilia dependency” that makes the monks experts in filmography instead of “seekers of God”
Leave a Reply