Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, the President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, was in Brooklyn for the World Communications Day media conference on May 22. After receiving the St. Francis DeSales Distinguished Communicator Award, he delivered a keynote address on the intersection of social media, technology and faith.

The speech was followed by breakout sessions in which members of the Catholic and mainstream media discussed issues related to social media. Below is a video of his speech, images from the day and excerpts from his speech.

Excerpts from Archbishop Celli’s remarks (read full transcript):

It’s absolutely necessary that the Church establish a presence in the digital world.

We are always fishing in the aquarium…The majority of fish are outside the aquarium. 

The Church is a community of communities. Its use of social media should reflect that.

The high rate of retweeting of the Pope’s tweets means that the Church is reaching an ever-wider community.

People no longer pay attention–if they ever did–simply because a church leader is speaking.

We don’t want a network of wires, but a network of people. 

Unless we engage digital media, we will wind up talking to ourselves.