There is a word embedded in Leo XIV’s theme for World Communications Day 2027 that rewards unpacking. Attention, he notes, comes from the Latin ad-tendere — to stretch toward. Not to consume, not to scroll, but to reach deliberately toward something outside yourself, something worth the effort of sustained regard. The platforms that now mediate most of human communication are engineered around the opposite movement. They stretch toward you. They learn your triggers, sharpen your compulsions, and serve you content calibrated to hold your eyes for another few seconds. The business model is not communication. It is the harvesting of attention as a raw material, sold to advertisers, through the engineering of psychological states — outrage, anxiety, craving — that make the harvest most efficient. Leo named this a spiritual crisis. He is right. But the tradition he represents has been running a counter-practice for a very long time. The Rule of Benedict, written in Read More…

How to reclaim your attention before it’s gone