There are a few big names on the Internet that everyone should learn. Biz Stone is the co-founder and creative director of Twitter. Chad Hurley is the CEO of YouTube. And of course there’s the pope, but that one is obvious.
In early 2009, the Vatican launched its own YouTube channel. Every day, the channel uploads a video of the pope doing his usual pope things. People can access the channel to see the pontiff’s Sunday readings, speech clips and updates on Benedict XVI’s life.
Then in May, the pope released apps for Facebook and the iPhone.
The Facebook application, called Pope2You, sends virtual postcards with photos of Benedict XVI and his words of wisdom.
The iPhone app, which can also be used on the iPod touch and the soon to be released iPad, is called H2Onews. Much like the YouTube channel, the application gives users access to various videos of the pope as well as ecclesiastical news.
It is nice to see the Vatican embracing the power of the Internet, instead of demonizing it as the hub of piracy and pornography that it often is.
But if the Web can provide an audience to anyone with a phone line and a keyboard, why not use it to expand the large audience of faithful the Church already has?
So on Jan. 23, the pope encouraged priests all over the world to get online and spread the Word through blogs.
“Using new technologies, priests can introduce people to the life of the Church and help our contemporaries discover the face of Christ,” the pope posted on the Vatican’s Web site, which looks like it hasn’t been updated since its debut in 1995.
Using the Internet to preach is quite the challenge, and I have a suspicion that most priests don’t know a whole lot about blogging.
That’s not to say that priests are bad writers, but writing for the Web is not easy. When someone goes online, their attention span is immediately cut in half.
The faithful may be eager to read blogs written by members of their church or Christians elsewhere, but to have a blog that actually introduces people to Christianity would require another level of savviness.
Popular and effective blogs are usually conduits of the written word, but the best blogs also implement audio, imagery and video, not to mention their role as a channel for dialogue between readers and contributors.
Hunting down pictures or videos, then presenting them in a way that complements a blog can be a full-time job. There are already a number of Christian sites that do this effectively — Word on Fire and New Advent to name a few — but most others tend to blend in with the countless other blogs online today.
Utilizing the Internet can be a revolutionary step in delivering religion to modern and future generations. It is a concept that all religious institutions should consider, but doing this in a way that speaks to the Websessed is challenging.
Hopefully, the Church and other religious bodies will continue to move in a more digital direction or else religion could one day find itself replaced by a site with banner ads and Farmville.
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