new evangelization

There's plenty of posts about this already, which I won't repeat here, instead, read the reports below:

• Archdiocese of St. Louis has a new app - Catholic STL
• Designing and Building Catholic STL

And, straight from the horse's mouth, here's the app's page on the Archdiocesan website.

This iPhone App kind of snuck up on me from under my radar; I was in the middle of two rather large projects in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, when I thought "Hmm... I've wanted to try my hand at an iPhone App for some time. Maybe the time is right!" After a few long nights, a few condensed weekends, and some work hours here and there, I've finished work on what I hope will be an inspirational app.

Not inspirational in the sense that people feel moved to prayer, or feel closer to Christ—no, that's not really the purpose of this app. Rather, inspirational in two ways:

1. In helping people utilize the sacraments.
   The main feature of this app (indeed, it launches straight into it!) is the parish mass/confession/reconciliation time discovery interface. It's so easy to simply find Mass times (or other sacrament times) with this app, that nobody has an excuse for missing Mass if they have an iPhone and are physically able to move about.
2. In getting more (Arch)dioceses on board with new communications initiatives.
   I'm hoping that this will be a benchmark app against which other (arch)dioceses can compare their own efforts in the mobile, 'just-in-time' area. Our parishioners deserve to have the information they need to help them in their faith lives—and they need it in their pockets!

At some point (maybe sooner rather than later), I'd like to open the code, maybe stash it on Github, and help other Catholic organizations make use of it (to whatever extent possible) for their own needs.

I'd also like to have an Android app for the Archdiocese, but so far I've not had the impetus (either from myself or from others) to do so. Read more of my thoughts on Android dev (as it stands now).

Perfect, the app is not. But I'm already tagging and working on a few bugs I've found in the version on the App Store right now, and I'm working on sync so the iPhone will always have the latest parish event time information. You can follow more of that development here.

Do you have any good ideas for further development? Any further integrations you see as necessary? Let me know in the comments!

Want to see what this is all about? If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad (this version isn't optimized for iPad yet), download Catholic STL for free.

[Note: Please read through the comments at the end of this post for some great insights about this situation.]

Time and time again, I'm seeing media reports that portray something that happens in the Church with either incorrect, or easily-misconstrued wording, and it continually paints the Church in a strange—if not bad—light.

The latest example: a new app called 'Confession' on the iPhone App Store.

From BBC's article on the app:

It also allows them to examine their conscience based on personalised factors such as age, sex and marital status - but it is not intended to replace traditional confession entirely.

Instead, it encourages users to understand their actions and then visit their priest for absolution.

It would be nice if we could be a little more clear in this wording—this app in no way whatsoever replaces any part of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is merely a tool/checklist to help penitents with their Examination of Conscience.

Since the article also points out that the Catholic Church has given its Imprimatur to this app, this surely means Catholics no longer need to visit the confessional to be absolved, correct? Nope. But that's the inference that will be drawn by almost every non-Catholic who knows anything about the Sacrament, and likely most Catholics as well (who goes to Reconciliation anymore, anyways? Isn't it some optional practice? </sarcasm>).

For example, from Geekologie: Catholic Church Approves Confession App

$1.99 to have your sins forgiven, not a bad deal! That's right folks, the Catholic Church has officially approved an iPhone app that guides worshipers through the process of confession. 

I've been monitoring many different aspects of the Church's communications over the past few years, and, as most of the readers of this post already know, it is easy to find many more examples of positive Catholic news gone awry—mostly because it was not communicated clearly, cohesively, immediately, and accessibly, to the media and to the public.

It is my goal (and I hope it is yours as well) to help make this happen less frequently.

[Update:] It was pointed out that an anchor on CNN's Newsroom also said of the app:

PHILLIPS: I'm a woman of the cloth, OK? All right. Here's the deal. For $1.99 you can now get this app, all right? And it's for sinners. And I'm not -- and the Catholic Church is actually saying -- endorsing this. So you don't have to go to church. You don't have to go see the priest. All you do is you go on to this app, OK, you log in.

(Source). [Emphasis mine]

I long for the day when I and others can spend more time communicating the truth, and new messages of hope and love, rather than clarifying that which others have said/introduced about the faith.

This morning I noticed the following interesting address from Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, to of all places, the 6th general congregation of the synod on the Middle East, which is ongoing now. 

Digital culture is present in the various nations of the Middle East and in local Churches through television, radio, cinema, websites and social networks. All this media space has an impact on daily life. ... As indicated in the 'Relatio', it is necessary to train pastoral workers as well as lay people and journalists, but not only them. The formation of seminarians is also a vital issue, not so much as regards technology which they handle better than we do, but as regards communication, which is communion in this rapidly developing culture.

Without priests - and without bishops - who understand modern culture, the communication gap will persist, something which will not favour the transmission of the faith to the young in the Church. It is not sufficient to build websites: what is needed is a presence that is able to create authentic means of communication, that opens 'places' where people can gather to bear witness to their faith and to their respect for others.

Obviously this does not mean ignoring personal encounter and physical community life. These are not alternative actions: they are both indispensable for extending God's kingdom.

Well said, and a good exhortation/confirmation for us.

From Matthew Warner's blog on the National Catholic Register website: How are parishes using new media?

Last week I asked my Twitter followers for some examples of parishes using new media. I got some good ones, which I was pleased with. So thank you fellow tweeters!

But I must admit that, overall, I was a bit disappointed in my search. I also “googled” the topic fairly extensively and the pickin’s were few. I hope that one day when we google “Catholic Parish,” we are blown away with how impressed we are with the many, many great results we find. In the meantime, we have some learning, sharing and working to do! Keep in mind I am looking for new media being applied specifically to the life of the parish, not simply its use in various other ministries by those in the Church.

I tried to capture a good variety of new media applications that parishes might find useful. But I hope it doesn’t stop there. I hope leaders of parishes will be contacting these parishes, asking them what works and what doesn’t and all taking some steps forward together. I also pray that the laity who have been blessed with the ability to produce and apply new media will come forward and fulfill an important roll in their Church.

What do you think? Be sure to drop Matthew a line either over on the original post (which has more findings from Matthew), or on Twitter (@MatthewWarner). (Matthew also blogs at Fallible Blogma, and is the founder of TweetCatholic).

The Vatican website (one of the oldest domains/websites on the Internet) has been due for an overhaul for some time. Looks like it's finally going to happen! Here's the news, from EWTN:

The director of the Vatican’s website, Msgr. Lucio Adrian Ruiz explained this week in an interview that the site is going through an extensive redesign to improve the Church's evangelization efforts.

The main reason for the redevelopment? Getting the Vatican website in line with Pope Benedict's call to a new evangelization on the 'digital continent.'

How long will this project take? Well, judging by the fact that the Vatican has over 500,000 pages (many, I am sure, not following any set standard of formatting... making migration scripting very tough), it could be a while.

Msgr. Ruiz said the Vatican site receives three million visits per day, with the greatest number of visits coming from the United States, followed by Italy, Spain, Germany, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Canada, France and China.

He also noted that the site has occasionally been the target of hackers [see an OSC report on one of the recent attacks here] and cyber attacks, but that the staff works closely with Italian online security officials to keep a close eye on their systems.

Just coming off the Catholic New Media Celebration (more info on the CNMC in a blog post here), this is a great step forward for our universal Church. Hopefully we'll see some movement soon!