The Vatican in cyber social networking

November 13, 5:22 PMOrlando Roman Catholic ExaminerMaria Mederos

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   Pope Benedict XVI. (Photo: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

While the 20th century might be considered the era of broadcasting media, the 21st century presents itself as the era of interactive media, requiring a dynamic two-way relationship as opposed to the straight presentation of a message.

As such, while not precisely known for being futuristic technologically-speaking, the Vatican is slowly moving toward social cyber applications.  Just 'getting their feet wet' for now, the Vatican has recently incursionated into YouTube, Facebook, Google, Twitter, iPhone, and Wikipedia.  

After a recent anti-Pope campaign from some Facebook users on account of the Pope's stance against use of condoms, and defending abstinence instead, to contain the AIDS epidemic, the Vatican developed Pope2You -an official Vatican Facebook application for anyone worldwide to be in directly in contact with Pope Benedict XVI. The Pontiff hopes to connect with the youth of the world to communicate his messages using the preferred media of this audience -the cyber social network.

Spread friendship with the Pope and become a witness of Christ in the world through the web.

Where 'the Pope meets you on Facebook', The Vatican's official Facebook application -Pope2You- which allows users to receive the latest messages and photos of Pope Benedict VXI, as well as to send virtual postcards to friends is English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. Whatever happened to Latin?  The Vatican has also launched a Youtube channel with videos of the Pontiff.  Google, who owns Youtube, is working in association with the Vatican Television Center and Vatican Radio on this venture.  In WikiCath, the official Catholic wikipedia application, young people are invited to connect with their Pope under the slogan of 'New technology, New relationship.'

Let's read the Pope's Message together.

The Pope has written to young people in a special way in his Message for the 43rd World Day of Communication.
The application WIKICATH lets us read the message in a new way, interactive and hypertext, through a platform built in the WIKI style.

WIKICATH has the commentary to the Pope's Message and the deeper key concepts contained in Benedict XVI's text.
WIKICATH can be a useful tool for the personal reading of the Message and a supplement for the pastoral care in Christian communities.

In the official Catholic YouTube application, The Vatican YouTube, videos 'about the life of the Church and about Pope Benedict XVI' are available to worldwide Catholics.  The home page announces its goal and scope.

The video clips, provided by Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Center, represent a new, quick open way through which one can educate oneself and get passionate about the happenings of the Church in the world, in a social and planetary perspective.

Benedict XVI: New media technologies

for evangelization

As a means to spread news about the life ofn the Catholic Church in he world in a timely manner, the official Catholic iPhone and iPod Touch applications was created in collaboration with Vatican Television Center and Vatican Radio as well. The podcasts are available in eight languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Hungarian and Chinese, while news are available in three formats: video, text, and audio.

Through H2ONews, the first video news application dedicated to the Catholic world, you can follow the travels and speeches of Benedict XVI, as well as key international ecclesiastical events.

Media experts will join bishops from across Europe to tell them how best to communicate the Catholic Church's message in the 21st century. [www.telegraph.co.uk]

Experts from Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and other social cyber-space technologies are in a four-day conference since Thursday, November 11, facilitating a crash-course on web communications applications. Though the Catholic Church was not alien to the broadcast media, the new social cyber technology is actually an interactive media, which engages the community in dynamic communication.  The risk involved is precisely that these media are intrinsically interactive, quite secular, and not precisely well-informed or educated. A crisis control nightmare of sorts lurks in the horizon.

Anticipating issues, and displaying a pro-active mindset, a young hacker from Switzerland and an Interpol expert on cybercrime will also train Vatican officials.  Does this mean that the millenarian Vatican Swiss Guard will also undergo cyber hacking/crime training from now on, while still dressed in their colorful traditional garb? 

As part of the modern trend of Popes to get close to the people, Pope John Paul II visited as many nations as possible, while Pope Benedict XVI  desires to take advantage of technology for a more direct one-on-one communication option.

Pope: Christ wants a humanity of dialogue

If the late Pope John Paul II became known as the 'pilgrim or traveling Pope,' Pope Benedict XVI might some day become known as the 'social media Pope'.  'Where they are, there will I be'...seems to be their motto. 

Even if it takes getting some of the world's best experts to tutor him, as well as some of the best hackers and cyber-crime experts to prevent complications, the Pontiff is determined to become accessible to today's youth.  No prejudices will be allowed to come in between him and his flock.  As his predecessor would say, 'Be not afraid...'

May the Lord of all bless you, Holy Father, for venturing out in search for the lost sheep in your flock...as the Holy Spirit moves in our world.

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