Experts on the internet have gathered at the Vatican to help the Holy See improve its public relations by getting to grips with new media, including the mysteries of internet searching, downloading, hacking and social networking.

The conference, attended by European Catholic bishops, includes representatives of Google, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia. Corriere della Sera said that the bishops and Vatican officials would be given advice by a young hacker from Switzerland, named only as "Petit Frere Bruno", and an Interpol expert on cybercrime. It is organised by the Swiss-based European Episcopal Commission for Media.

Cardinal Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb, said: "We have to ask ourselves how to achieve a relationship between old and new cultures. The Church began to communicate two thousand years ago, and needs to be up to date with modern means of communication".

Claudio Maria Celli, head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said that Pope Benedict XVI used a laptop and IPod. "He appreciates new technology and sends personal e-mails to keep in touch with his friends," Monsignor Celli said. He added: "The world of hackers is a separate, parallel culture that is mostly ignored by the Church but not by fans of information technology."

Monsignor Jean-Michel Di Falco, Bishop of Gap in France, said "if you are not present on the Web, you cut yourself off from a large part of people's lives". The Church should "promote a Christian presence on the Web".

He noted that in January the Pope himself had admitted that he could have avoided the uproar over his reinstatement of Bishop Richard Williamson, an excommunicated arch-conservative Catholic who denies that the Nazi Holocaust occurred, with a simple internet search. The pontiff said that he had been unaware of Bishop Williamson's views when lifting his excommunication.

The Vatican has long had its own website, and in January Pope Benedict launched his own dedicated channel on YouTube, with video and audio footage of his speeches as well as news of the Holy See. He said that Catholics "must find ways to spread — in a new manner — voices and pictures of hope, through the internet, which brings together our planet in an increasingly close-knitted way".