When Your Phone Becomes Your Prayer Book

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Many media snickered when the Vatican announced that people who followed the World Youth Day pilgrimage via social media could derive the same spiritual benefits earned by those present in Rio de Janeiro for the international church event. Were they worried that it made a spiritual effort too easy?

Certainly tuning in on social media is a far stretch from the work of Chaucer’s pilgrims of the Canterbury Tales. But from the church’s standpoint, social media allows World Youth Day to include those who could not travel to walk alongside the youth on pilgrimage.

Going social media follows the church’s tradition of keeping up with the communications arts. No surprise here. In the mid-eighties, the Vatican announced people could receive the pope’s Urbi et Orbi (To the city and to the world) apostolic blessing on Christmas and Easter via TV without standing in St. Peter’s Square. Earlier in that century the church moved into the then new medium, radio. Guglielmo Marconi considered the inventor of the new medium, launched Vatican Radio in 1931. The worldwide service now airs in 47 languages. Voice of America went on the air in 1942.

To bring the Gospel into people’s lives, the Church has no choice but to engage with contemporary media. Given what some consider the usual glacial movement of the Holy See – when you’re 2,000 years old, why hurry? – the Church has entered social media with lightning speed. After all, the World Wide Web only took off in the mid-nineties. Facebook was born in 2004; Twitter in 2006.

The church searches for ways to use media for its mission. For those who want a few moments with Scripture, for example, the U.S. bishops accommodate them with daily readings and a meditation on them via www.usccb.org/bible. For those who want to spend more time with daily prayer the Irish Jesuits have Sacred Space at www.sacredspace.ie. Such media aids have replaced the prayer books of a generation or more ago. For many, iphones have become prayer books. One may not find the same religious sensory appeal in holding an iPad as in holding a Bible, but that downside may be offset by the accessibility to Scripture found on the Web.

Church entrepreneurs have developed apps for everything from the rosary to the Divine Office. (Caution: Don’t judge someone looking at his phone before Mass – he may be praying the Liturgy of the Hours, as the Office is called.)

Pope Francis tweets virtually every day with challenging and inspiring messages. USCCB shares them via USCCB Facebook and Twitter accounts. It’s a spiritual boost from the man who is charm the world with his down-to-earth spirituality. It’s also a connection with the Vicar of Christ.

Believers accept the fact that God is everywhere. It shouldn’t surprise us when God shows up in social media.

(CNS Photo/Gretchen Crowe)

Pope Francis: Rebuilding the Church Through Communication

Bishop of Rome, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Servant of the Servants of God and... Global Communications Focal Point?

It may already be happening.

Pope Francis appointed a working group of eight cardinals on April 13 to advise him on the governance of the Catholic Church and reform of the Roman curia. This move has many wondering what shape such reform might take. As a communications professional, my thoughts immediately go to something the Canadian communications genius and Catholic Marshall McLuhan once said about the papacy.

Several commentators have already invoked McLuhan's famous line, "the medium is the message," to describe the new pope's gestures of humility, such as refusing to live in the apostolic palace and washing the feet of young inmates. But three years before his death in 1980, McLuhan, who coined the term "surfing" and predicted the Internet as early as the 1960s, addressed how the papacy would be affected by a world of instant communication: "When things speed up, hierarchy disappears and global theatre sets in," he said.

This prophecy came true just a year later with the election of John Paul II, a rock star pope for modern media, if there ever was one. John Paul died in 2005, a year before the launch of Twitter and a year after the start of Facebook. Communications have only become more instantaneous, and the papacy has had to keep pace. The papal Twitter handle, @pontifex, launched in December 2012, is one reflection of this.

Additionally, Pope Francis has taken the interesting step of holding his daily Masses at the Vatican guest house. Earlier popes celebrated these Masses privately with their household staff and guests. Opting for a more open setting, Pope Francis has given himself a daily platform to address just about any topic he chooses in the context of the day's readings. The practical result has been that, by the time people in the United States are waking up, a story is waiting in our news feeds with the latest from the pope.

Vatican commentator John Thavis calls this development the pope's "mini-Magisterium." Another apt description might be that Pope Francis has decided to fill the media vacuum. This is profound not only in terms of exercising his ministry as a universal teacher and pastor, but also for his responsibility to promote unity in the Church and his choice to do so through mass communications. If every Catholic with access to modern media makes an effort to listen to Pope Francis on a daily basis, internalizes what he has to say and informs his or her actions with it, the pope becomes a pontifex maximus (chief bridge builder) like never before.

It also echoes McLuhan's prediction of bureaucracy giving way to communications.

We've seen other bishops follow versions of this model. For instance, to meet the challenges following his 2011 appointment to Philadeliphia, Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap., has simultaneously stripped back archdiocesan infrastructure while embracing his bully pulpit through digital media. USCCB President Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who has been tweeting and blogging for a while now, has a newly launched online presence. And one of the pope's eight new advisers, Boston's Cardinal Seán O'Malley, OFM Cap., was the first blogging cardinal in the United States.

But it isn't only about popes and bishops utilizing social media. For instance, the far-reaching quality of Pope Francis' message is tied directly to the men and women of the Catholic press who cover him. Special praise goes to Vatican Radio, which has been on hand to cover the Masses at the Vatican guest house, the administrators at News.va, who promote what the pope says via social media, and Catholic News Service, which has combined web video and a traditional forum -- the pope's Wednesday General Audience -- to generate truly creative and attractive content that any pope would be pleased to have at the service of his message.

And of course social media aren't only in the hands of a few professional gatekeepers. Everyone has access. As a result, these platforms have transformed the Church into a landscape of blogs, tweets and viral content where real conversations happen and the public at large gets a pulse and a picture of life in the Church. Pope Francis seems to recognize that his role is to embed himself at the heart of this universe, evangelize it and draw people closer to each other and to Christ.

For more on Pope Francis' approach to communications, here's a recent reflection by Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

(CNS Photo/Paul Haring)

Power up for Lent

               Post on Facebook. Send a tweet. Less than a month before Ash Wednesday Pope Benedict XVI has called on Catholics to get into social media. He blesses the world of Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Facebook. He calls social media the new “agora,” the “open public square in which people share ideas, information and opinions, and in which new relationships and forms of community can come into being.”

            The pope lauded the latest communications breakthroughs in his 47^th World Communications Day message, “Social Networks: portals of truth and faith; new spaces for evangelization.” World Communications Day is marked in the U.S. on May 12.

            For Pope Benedict social media is opportunity. A Lenten exercise for us may be to help social media be worthy of the papal endorsement. We need to sanctify the net. Here are some steps:

            Go positive to counter the negative. The Web is filled with snide and snarky comments, so offer a counter balance. When you see meanness, an untruth or bias, gently correct for the record.

            Pray for the nay-sayers and character assassins who hide behind anonymity. Writers marked by mean speech reflect inner pain.  

            Resist knee-jerk responses. Ask how someone on the receiving end will feel before flinging a verbal slice and dice.

            Lent is a time for alms-giving so seek out worthy charities to which to donate. Catholic Relief Services’ Operation Rise Bowl is one. Catholic Charities agencies are always in need.

Share where you’ve seen God during the day and use pics. God’s there in the kids who make us laugh, the beauty of a flower, the images of love that touch our hearts. God’s also there in starving children and fragile elderly begging for help.

            Research sites that help you pray. The U.S. bishops at www.usccb.org/bible offer daily readings from Scripture with a reflection. The Irish Jesuits at www.sacredspace.ie use simple music and reflections to draw one to contemplative ground. Share what you’ve found with friends.

            Remember that how you say something may be even more important than what you say.

            Converse with people with whom you do not agree and seek common ground from which both of you can move on.

            Establish you own creed for social media behavior e.g.  Don’t deal in put downs, think before you type, find something positive to contribute to the conversation, don’t text while driving and don’t text while someone is sharing real time with you.

            Have the strength to power down. If social media get in the way of your relationship with God, family or friends, let yourself power down. Don’t check the computer until you’ve said good morning to God. Let the day’s last thoughts center on thanking God for his graces rather than a news flash from the Drudge Report.

            Send a tweet to Pope Benedict at @pontifex and download his app to your cellphone or I-pad so you can easily check in with him for his wisdom.

            Social media can touch hearts, notes Pope Benedict in the 2013 World Communications Day address. “When we are present to others, in any way at all, he says, “we are called to make known the love of God to the furthest ends of the earth.”

Tweet the Pope

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

With the push of a button, I sent a tweet with #AskPontifex to the pope at @Pontifex, the new Twitter account the Vatican set up for Pope Benedict XVI. It’s nice to go straight to the top. Kudos to the pope who saw that even at 85 years of age, he has to engage in social media.

Pope Benedict speaks many languages, his native German, of course, and Italian, French, English and other tongues too. But the most important language for him may be Digital, the one that reaches every nation in the world.

On Twitter, Pope Benedict will send messages in eight languages: English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, French, Arabic and Italian. His tweets debut December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who in an apparition startled the peasant Juan Diego by speaking to him instead of higher ups in mid-16th century Mexico.

When Pope Benedict joins Twitter, he endorses a community that exists on the Web, where people can even discuss matters of the soul. Its anonymity can free people to share deep concerns. It is not always pretty, of course. Recently, for example, on the USCCB Facebook page people debated whether or not there’s a religious obligation to help the poor. Arguments over such a mandate can be a healthy, though sometimes raucous religious exercise. Undoubtedly Pope Benedict will encounter cynicism, but he can handle that. He knows it is important to engage, even at personal cost.

The pope’s web leadership might encourage bishops and others to follow suit. This will be no small accomplishment. Resistance comes from more than the fact that social media is time consuming. It comes from the fact that blogging and the like defy what many have been taught. Priests and bishops, for example, learned early on: “it’s about the message, not you.” Now comes a communications vehicle where they are expected to get more personal. It jars them.

Church leaders also revel in finely nuanced theology. Tweets of 140 characters preclude nuancing. Some who think length equals profundity might pause at truths such as “God loves you,”  “Jesus died for you” and “I am with you always.” They’re short on words, deep in meaning and fit Twitter’s length restrictions.

Some fear the pope and other leaders might lose some mystique when they tweet with the hoi polloi. Yet plain speaking is not irreverent and being with the masses is not beneath a religious leader. After all, God did become man. Scripture proves simple speech can be holy. Think “Let there be light” at creation and Mary’s “Let it be done unto me according to thy word” at the Annunciation. Engaging the crowd means being with God’s children, such as the multitude Jesus addressed on the mountainside.

Social media reaches billions. Its brevity makes it accessible. It’s via the Internet, a new place people gather and that sometimes needs to be redeemed. It is interactive as it beckons web users to engage another, perhaps the antidote to the isolation many people feel today. As he wades into social media waters, the pope will encounter a sometimes cynical cyber-world, but by using Twitter with sincerity, he can elevate the medium. Some may doubt the wisdom of this papal venture, but fear has never stopped Christians from sharing their message through all available means.

---

Editor's Note: Got a question for Pope Benedict XVI on Twitter? Use the hashtag #askpontifex to @Pontifex.

 

Five things Catholics should know- November 16, 2012 edition

1. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development collection is this weekend. CCHD is the bishops’ domestic anti-poverty program. It funds programs in urban, rural, and suburban settings that lift people out of poverty.

2. In the recent election, there was a stronger vote for defense of marriage in Maine, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington State than for the GOP slate. Looks like defense of marriage is a bi-partisan issue.

3. Voters in Massachusetts voted down a physician-assisted suicide initiative. There’s a victory for life and something the Bay State can bay about.

4. Catholics are on the Internet but are missing out on Catholic sites, including http://www.facebook.com/usccb

5. God loves you.

Five things Catholics should know November 16, 2012

1.     The Catholic Campaign for Human Development collection is this weekend. CCHD is the bishops’ domestic anti-poverty program. It funds programs in urban, rural, and suburban settings that lift people out of poverty.

 

2.     In the recent election, there was a stronger vote for defense of marriage in Maine, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington State than for the GOP slate. Looks like defense of marriage is a bi-partisan issue.

 

3.     Voters in Massachusetts voted down a physician-assisted initiative. There’s a victory for life and something the Bay State can bay about.

 

4.     Catholics are on the Internet but are missing out on Catholic sites, including http://www.facebook.com/usccb

 

5.     God loves you.

Catholics and Social Media

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

            A recent sign of technology in church was a man watching the Olympics on his Smartphone. He may be among those very few Catholics who, the Public Religion Research Institute says, “incorporate technology into their practice of worship.”     

Public Religion’s July 2012 report finds that few Americans use social technology for religion and that Catholics especially lag in this area: while 19 percent of Evangelical Christians reported having posted something about being in church on Facebook, only six percent of mainline Protestants and two percent of Catholics have done so. It added that while a quarter of Evangelicals have downloaded or listened to a sermon on line, just six percent of mainline Protestants and Catholics have done so.

However, there is much proof that Catholics are present in the new media world via blogs, Facebook, Twitter, web pages and other forms of social media.

            The U.S. bishops’ website, www.usccb.org attracts almost 100,000 visitors each day to its site for liturgical readings of the day, www.usccb.org/bible/readings. These visitors see and hear a brief reflection on the readings at www.usccb.org/bible/reflections.

            The bishops’ Facebook page, www.facebook.com/usccb, boasts about 40,000 followers and is growing. Posts on USCCBlog, found at http://usccbmedia.blogspot.com find their way into other corners of the blogosphere, both through church blogs, such as America Magazine’s “In all things…” and blogs in the secular arena, including Huffington Post, Politico, Washington’s Post’s “On Faith” and USA Today’s “Faith & Reason.”

            A recent social media foray is the church’s religious liberty texting campaign. The bishops urge people to text “Freedom” or Libertad” to 377377. Texters can sign up for brief messages about religious freedom, a key issue now.

            Church blogs abound. Gossip blogs offer “inside” information, such as who might become a bishop next. Several blogs feed a liberal or conservative base, and, I fear, stoke church polarization in this election year.

            Some bishops blog. Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona, files a “Monday Memo” at www.tucsondiocese.org. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York often makes news at http://blog.archny.org. Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston lets people know what he’s doing on his travels with www.cardinalseansblog.org. Others, such as Bishop Christopher Coyne, apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, and Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock, Arkansas, post homilies, or at least 140 characters from their homilies, on Facebook or Twitter.

            Catholics who use the Web for spiritual development can go to many sites, including not only the USCCB site but also sites geared to meditation, such as the Irish Jesuits’ http://www.sacred space.ie and Franciscan Father Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, www.cac.org.

            The church has a long history of wise use of media technology. Once Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type in the mid-15th century, the first book off his printing press was the Bible. Radio became popular in the United States in the early 20^th century, and one of its first shows was “The Catholic Hour,” which ran from 1930-1950, and featured the priest/preacher Fulton Sheen. Television surged into popularity in the fifties and Sheen became an Emmy-Award-winning TV star for his program “Life Is Worth Living,” 1951-1957. The syndicated “Fulton Sheen Program” followed, 1961-1968. Given this history, despite the Public Religion Research Institute data, the Catholic Church won’t lag for long in use of the newest technological means of communication, social media.

Church Social Media Rule: Let’s Talk

The social media phenomenon offers both challenge and opportunity for the church. Social media reaches people – millions are on Facebook and Twitter every day. The church cannot ignore them. They are interactive, however, and don’t work when conversations are one-way. They involve dialogue, something not always welcome by clergy, teachers and other leaders.

“Because I said so” doesn’t cut it in social media, a fact regretted by parents and leaders who for ages have resorted to the phrase when exasperated with the petulant “But …” and plaintive “Why?”

For oldsters, such dialogue takes getting used to. A few years ago I took a course in church social teaching. It was to be an intellectual treat – until I got into the classroom with students who sought to debate the prof. The lecturer loved the interactivity, but I groaned inwardly at each sidestep. A former teacher, I appreciated the back-and-forth that helps minds expand, but I wanted the teaching clear-cut and wanted to soak up all the renowned prof had to offer. It may have been my inner dinosaur peeking out.

The church has a solid history of such top-down didacticism. It has libraries of tomes that explore theological truths. But that is only one part of the church.

Another side of the church – the pastoral side – is open to dialogue. It has validated such conversations as far back as the Gospels (see woman conversing with Jesus at the well). On the one-on-one level, the dialogue that ensues after a “Can we talk?” encounter has been an integral part of the church for years, a comfort to worried parents, frustrated spouses, abused workers and confused children.

Perhaps social media can help the church engage more in such dialogue. It is not easy. It takes energy, especially emotional energy. Talk – or dialogue – is work.

Many business leaders boast they have a web presence, but don’t take questions and avoid interactivity, though they might send an auto-reply: “Thanks for your message.” Better they post comments on a billboard, with the honest implication that they don’t want feedback. To be genuine on social media you have to answer questions. You have to discuss. You have to accept and even embrace being challenged.

At the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, we have Facebook and Twitter accounts. They offer opportunities to share, but also give rise to points of contention inherent in all dialogues. Some people agree with you, some don’t. Some want to fight. All of them, however, belong to our virtual community and so deserve respect. Some people who post ask the community to share in their sorrow, perhaps over the death of a spouse. Others muse on the feast or Scripture reading of the day, giving others a new twist on a moment in the church. Some are ready for a fight and evoke the urge to push “delete.” We try not to do that since the whole point of the virtual community is dialogue. If a virtual scrimmage breaks out, we hope all, including virtual bystanders, come away more enlightened. It is a risk worth taking. Virtual conversations grow in importance as church attendance decreases and fewer have relationships with a parish to which to tether themselves in life’s storms.

The Internet, of course, cannot replace the community at Mass, where you know strangers by the pew they choose and as their children grow. There’s nurturing warmth even in the nodding acquaintance with those with whom you pray every week.

Social media has a place in the 21^st century church, though some oldsters may have to be drawn into it, collars, veils, rosaries and lapel crosses askew. Facebook, Twitter and other social media can be worthy instruments of the Gospel to nurture our faith life, though some are just warming up.

And Now Facebook

So it seems one of the projects that I could only hint at in the last blog post has come to fruition more quickly than expected. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops now has an official page on Facebook.

This page follows Twitter and this blog in terms of social media outreach by the Communications and Media Relations wing of the USCCB. Hopefully, the Facebook page will complete this picture, adding pictures, videos, forums for discussion, and links to USCCB and other content. This is all a work in progress, mind you, but these are our hopes.

So for any Facebook users who follow us on here or on Twitter, we happily suggest following the link in the first paragraph above and becoming a fan.

A side note -- our page should not to be mistaken with a pre-existing Facebook group that, despite its lack of affiliation, seems to suggest that it is part of our organization. This is not the case.