Making technology work for the Pope

It was only a matter of time before the Pope would make his presence felt on Facebook. But you definitely, won’t “poke” at him. Can you imagine how many “fans” the Pope would have? Count me in that list! Last I checked, nearly 50,000 fans!


There is one photo album, labeled as “Holy See Press Office.” It has 7 images of official vestments and insignias. Maybe, they should have photos from the foreign trips of the Pope, like his recent visit to the Middle East and Israel.

In discussions, “fans” talk about many issues like papal infallibility, Immaculate Concepcion and Purgatory. This thread alone has 36 posts, from 23 persons.

Events? None where listed. How can that be, when he was recently in the Middle East? There was however an update posted Friday, May 15, 2009 at 3:28am about the Pope’s visit to the Basilica of the Nativity and children’s hospital

Am sure there are many more things the Pope’s communication team can do with this Facebook portal.

Recently, a new Vatican website, was launched. This was part of the Vatican's World Communications Day celebration last Sunday which was devoted to communicating the gospel with new technologies.

"We recognize that a church that does not communicate ceases to be a church," said Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican's Social Communications department.

Monsignor Tighe further says that many young people today are not turning to traditional media like newspapers and magazines any more for information and entertainment. "They are looking to a different media culture, and this is our effort to ensure that the Church is present in that communications culture."

According to a Reuters story by Philip Pullella, the new site contains “virtual postcards” which has images and words from the Pope. These postcards carry messages aimed for the youth (that excludes me). Just like Blue Mountain virtual postcards, users can send these postcards to their friends. I should try it. You should try it too!

Guess, these postcards can inspire the youth to consider being “fishers of men?” The Catholic Church has recognized a decline in the entry of men and women for religious vocations. It has been said that Europe has some of the most beautiful and biggest churches, but many of them are half-empty. Here, that is the opposite. Churches are full that some people have accepted the practice of staying outside the Church.

The 82-year-old Pope has encouraged young Catholics to use the internet responsibly but also has warned against the potential use of new media to spread violent messages and pornography.

The Vatican’s foray into technology also includes YouTube. You can visit this link, www.youtube.com/vaticanit