Church asks faithful to give up Facebook

Catholic priests are asking the faithful in Italy to throw away their iPhones and not log into Facebook for Lent.

Church leaders hope that by giving up text messages and updating status messages on social-networking websites, people will rediscover the art of communication without using technology.

The Catholic church also wants to draw awareness to the production of coltan, a metallic ore from which the element tantalum is extracted and used in electronic products like mobile phones and computers.

Coltan mining is, according to aid agencies, financing the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"During the last 10 years the country has been the scene of a brutal war which has claimed more than four million lives, what we are asking is a simple gesture," said Francesco Panigadi, of the Modena Missionary Centre.

'We want people to pause for reflection during Lent and think about this before they send an SMS text message. It would be a sign to remember that as that message is written we are shaping the lives of people far away," he added.

However, the 'No SMS for Lent' initiative has not received widespread support.

The editor of the Vatican's official newspaper Osservatore Romano said that text messages are by their nature neither good or bad.

"It all depends on how you use them. If text messages are a proper way of communicating I don't see why we should deprive ourselves of them on Good Friday or any other day," he said.