Cyberspatial Evangelization

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - October 13, 2006

Cyberspatial Evangelization

When Cardinal Sean O'Malley went to Rome a couple of weeks ago to take possession of his titular Church, the munificent 150-seat Santa Maria della Vittoria, little did he realize that he would be preaching to a congregation of three million people.

He had decided, prior to going to Italy, to try his hand at this relatively new phenomenon of a web log, which is an on-line journal of first-hand impressions and photographs. During his March trip to Rome to receive his red hat, the blog of the religion reporter for the Boston Globe was so popular, and allowed so many people in Massachusetts to follow the events as if they were there, that the Cardinal decided to give this format a try on his return trip to take possession of the Church of which Benedict had given him custody.

The response overwhelmed even the highest initial expectations. News of its creation was covered by Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News and was mentioned in thousands of newspapers and tens of thousands of websites across the globe. In its first week of existence, three million people visited the site to read the Cardinal's impressions about Padre Pio, St. Peter's Basilica, his visits to the tombs of various saints, Roman restaurants, to read his homilies, and to view stunning photographs of each shrine and event.

Because of the mammoth interest, the Cardinal decided upon his return to Boston to continue cardinalseansblog.org with an entry every Friday. In his first domestic posting, he gave a sense of his new cyberspace style. He answered some of the many questions — some curious, some pastoral — made to him in the first week of the blog, and did so in a tone and with a wisdom that is sure to attract many others to the site.

The whole experience of the enormous success of Cardinal O'Malley's blog should leave the leaders of the Church — bishops, priests, religious and laity — with Pentecost-like enthusiasm. Blogs and web pages are the new virtual pulpits from which one can "teach all nations" almost at once. The internet is the new Areopagus, where the evangelization of modern man needs to occur. Seventy-three percent of adults in the United States now use the internet each day, and the Church has the mission to meet them where they are at. For young adults, like the eighty-eight percent of 18-29 year-olds who daily use the web, and many of whom are still waiting to be effectively evangelized, there is perhaps no more efficient means of reaching them.

There is already a substantial presence of Catholics and the Catholic Church on the web. From the official Vatican site, to thousands of apologetic pages giving answers to commonly asked questions about the faith, to resource sites where Catholics can read for free spiritual classics or Church documents, to homily sites, to blogs where priests, religious and lay people can assist and inspire each other on their pilgrimages of faith, to the web pages that over fifty-percent of parishes in the United States now have, there is much nourishment for Catholics and for those whom God might be calling to become Catholics.

But to a large degree one thing notably has been missing, which may partially explain the astounding reception given to Cardinal O'Malley's blog: the direct, interactive presence of the Church's leaders.

In an age in which authority is suspected more than respected, when trust needs to be earned rather than presumed, when people believe something only after scrutinizing the credibility of the one giving the testimony, there has been an enormous and unsatisfied hunger of Catholics of strong and weak faith both to get to know their shepherds. They want to hear from their shepherd's mouth the reason for the hope that is within him. They want to be able to evaluate whether he is a man of God or an ecclesiastical politician or businessman. They want to be inspired by him, and through him to begin to believe in the holiness of the Church again after some very difficult years. They want to get to know him personally, without Mass vestments, to see him up close, to have the possibility to ask him some questions that have been bugging them for years. They want to see how he looks upon and responds to the ordinary things of daily life.

Of course, these desires are impossible to fulfill one-on-one with every Catholic, but instruments like a blog can bring millions close to that experience and knowledge, all at the same time.

In his 2001 message for the 35th World Communications Day, Pope John Paul II, no stranger to putting out into the deep, said that the internet "offers unique opportunities for proclaiming the saving truth of Christ to the whole human family. Consider...the positive capacities of the Internet to carry religious information and teaching beyond all barriers and frontiers. Such a wide audience would have been beyond the wildest imaginings of those who preached the Gospel before us... Catholics should not be afraid to throw open the doors of social communications to Christ, so that his Good News may be heard from the housetops of the world."

Cardinal O'Malley has courageously climbed up on the roof. Let's join him.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.