An academic has called on fellow Catholics to enter into the virtual world to save souls.
Antonio Spadaro, writing an article in the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, said that Second Life, an online simulation game with 8 million viewers; is a 'mission territory' to find new converts and should be considered an opportunity for the Church, reported Reuters.
"Deep down, the digital world can be considered, in its way, mission territory," he said. "Second Life is somewhere where the opportunity to meet people and to grow should not be missed, therefore, any initiative that can inspire the residents in a positive way should be considered opportune."
Despite the enormous opportunities opened up by the digital world to bring people to Christ, the biggest danger on the web that is frequently identified by Christians is pornography with its most vulnerable victims being young men.
Peter Sellick, a senior research officer at the Department of Physiology in the University of Western Australia and the deacon associate at St Andrew's Anglican Church in WA, wrote in the 'Online-Opinion' site that pornography gave a misrepresentation of women where they were seen as possessing no soul of their own.
"Pornography is a representation of just such a false world in which women possess no self, no soul, of their own," wrote Mr. Sellick.
"There is the danger, especially among young men, that this false world corrupts the real sexual world in which the future is safeguarded by the promise of exclusivity and directed towards the bearing and nurturing of children."
Dr Martin Robinson, from the Bible Society in the U.K., said that pornography has become a 'spiritual substitute' for men and it seemed the church cannot provide much help for them since the topic of sexuality was difficult to brooch, reported the Christian Research Association.
"Men move into a variety of sexual expressions and areas in the vain hope of experiencing some of the spiritual transcendence which the society generally denies. It seems that the church is unable to provide much help in this area, partly because sexuality is not a topic of easy conversation in family oriented circles."
The Nielsen Net Ratings/NetView reported 4.3 million Australians viewed pornography or visited a sex-oriented matchmaker site on the Internet at least once in the quarter ending in March. Almost one in five of those who visited these sites in the past quarter were under 18 and one-in-three of them were women.