The video the Pope included in his iPad

The pope has launched a new Vatican website with his iPad, which included a video from ROME REPORTS.

Vatican hopes iPod can bring silence to Rome’s churches

The following comes from the CNA:

The Vatican has introduced a new way of keeping silence in their churches while also informing tourists – the iPod.

Today is the first full day of a trial which sees pilgrims to the basilica of St. John Lateran given the audio-guide with a special app explaining the 1,700-year history of the church, which serves as the Pope’s cathedral.

“I can easily say that in Italy there are no examples of experiences like this in religious contexts, probably not even those in museums,” Jelena Jovanovic said to CNA. Her company, Antenna International, created the handheld device.

The multi-lingual guide offers audio, video, photos and texts to give an interactive experience to pilgrims. It also provides historical re-enactments narrated by actors.

Tourists can now listen to the experience of their fellow pilgrims from centuries past or even a “first-hand” account of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, when the Emperor Constantine saw a cross in the sky and converted to Christianity.

But the primary purpose of the guide is not entertainment or even education - it’s prayer and silence.

Bishop Luca Brandolini, the head of Pastoral Care for the Diocese of Rome, explained to CNA that “Unfortunately, our basilicas have become more like noisy meeting places at many times.”

“We need to bring back a place and time for silence. So I think this audio-guide will help achieve that.”

The Managing Director of the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, the Vatican body that oversees all pilgrim activity in the Diocese of Rome, agrees.

“Those who want to enter into a basilica to pray must be able to pray. So this multimedia guide helps with that,” said Fr. Caesar Atuire.

“Everyone can now do what they have to do without disturbing others.”

There is no charge for the use of the guide, but pilgrims do have to leave a document, such as a passport, as security.

The Vatican will monitor the experiment at St. John Lateran until December. Then officials will decide whether or not to roll the scheme out to other basilicas and churches in the Diocese of Rome.

VATICAN TAPS TECHNOLOGY TO PROMOTE JPII BEATIFICATION

The following comes from Zenit.org:

The Vatican is giving Pope John Paul II's beatification this May a high profile, tapping technology and vast archives to give as "great an exposure and as wide a coverage as possible."

A note today from the Vatican press office announced official YouTube and Facebook pages -- coming from Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Center with the agreement of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

The pages present video clips on the pontificate year by year, as well as video clips with the Pope's voice in various languages and situations, on trips and in the Vatican.

"The general objective is to accompany the course of the beatification using the instruments technology makes available, making full use of the resources at our disposal and, at least in part, of the vast documentary archives held by Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Center," the statement affirmed.

The new sites are in addition to the Vatican's already existing YouTube channel. The John Paul II channel will also be supplied with video clips of current events and information concerning the days of the beatification, the Vatican reported.

The same video clips are available at the Facebook page, where the number of fans is in the thousands and literally growing by the second.

Solar Roadways: The Prototype

The Solar Roadways project is working to pave roads with solar panels that you can drive on!

Our current power grid is based on centralized power stations. Distribution of power is handled through transmission lines (overhead and underground), relay stations, and transformers. When a line goes down (ice, lighting, wind, tress, utility pole hit by car, etc.), everyone on the wrong end of the line loses power until the damage is repaired. If a power station goes down, an entire section of the country goes dark.

The Solar Roadways™ on the other hand, replaces all current centralized power stations including coal- and nuclear-powered electricity generation plants. With the Solar Roadways™, the road becomes the power grid, eliminating the need for unsightly utility poles and relay stations. Power is generated everywhere - every road, parking lot, and driveway. No more power outages, roaming or otherwise.

For more information visit http://www.solarroadways.com/main.html.

This is pretty creative! What do you think? Is it workable?

Smartphone applications integrate prayer life with daily technology

The following comes from the CNS.com site:

Praying is now so 21st century.

Instead of a paperback missalette, there's iMissal. Instead of prayer cards, there's a touch-screen Saint A Day. Instead of randomly jotting down prayer requests, there's a digitally organized list in PrayerSteward.

These three applications -- better known as apps -- only scratch the surface of faith-related digital materials available in Apple's App Store and, to a lesser extent, in the Android Market and Palm Pre App Catalog. With these digital Catholic resources comes the undeniable convenience of modern-day prayer.

"I know people who before they even get out of bed they have their iPod Touch or their iPhone in their hand," said Sister Kathryn James Hermes, a Daughter of St. Paul and director of digital publishing for Pauline Books and Media, in an interview with the Arlington Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Arlington Diocese.

"You could be looking at the psalms or the morning meditation," she added.

In March, Parks Associates, a market research and consulting company specializing in digital technologies, reported that smartphone (i.e. iPhone, Android, Palm Pre) users are expected to quadruple by 2014, resulting in 1 billion users worldwide.

That's a market that everyone, even the Vatican, can get behind.

On Easter Sunday, the Vatican Observatory Foundation, which promotes scientific research of the heavens, launched the Vatican-approved iPhone app: "Daily Sermonettes with Father Mike Manning."

"These daily reflections are inspired by Scripture, using God's uplifting message as a guide in your daily life, supporting the foundation's mission of scientific research, education and discovery," the website reads.

Also approved by the Vatican is iBreviary (available on iPhone and Android), an app developed in part by Italian priest Father Paolo Padrini, that contains daily readings, the Liturgy of the Hours and other prayers in multiple languages.

"As religious, we take to heart that (Pope) Benedict has said we need to give a soul to technology, a soul to communications," Sister Kathryn said. "We do that through prayer, through reflection, through the love with which we carry out our apostolate -- even the way in which we create our apps, trying to make them a truly beautiful experience."

Sister Kathryn and the Daughters of St. Paul always are on the lookout for ways to give the Internet a soul by using it to spread the good news.

"For those who never go into a church, through the media we're able to allow wherever they are to become a church," she said. "It becomes a place of encounter for them, a sacred space, a type of church. It becomes a way to multiply our presence to a whole new audience."

The iMissal app, developed by Cantcha Inc. and available for iPhone and Android users, contains a full calendar displaying all liturgical seasons, all Mass readings for every liturgical cycle, audio readings, a daily Bible verse and a list of popular prayers.

"It really is meant to become the source of everything Catholic that Catholics turn to for prayer and devotion and faith," Sister Kathryn said. "It's this very simple thing. You can have the readings right in your hand along with everything else that organizes your life."

Favorite prayers can be e-mailed to friends, and iMissal is connected with CatholicTV, a television ministry of the Archdiocese of Boston, and enables users to stream Mass online.

Though the Rosary Miracle Prayer app, available in June, users can pray the rosary in his or her own "sacred space." Audio tracks feature the Daughters of St. Paul -- recorded at their studio in Boston -- praying the decades, and 18 different sets of pictures help draw the faithful into the four sets of mysteries.

From within the app, users can e-mail the Daughters of St. Paul directly with personal prayer intentions.

With the Saint A Day app, invoking a prayer to the patron saint of cancer, artists, flying or mail delivery is only an index finger away. A quick search results in a wide breadth of information on a particular saint, and users then are able to e-mail it to a friend in need.

PrayerSteward, an application released earlier this month by Safe-t-Technologies LLC, offers an easy way to keep track of prayer intentions.

Once a user make a promise to remember someone in prayer, it can be added to the PrayerSteward list. The user can set time limits or reminders or e-mail the prayer request to others. More information is available at prayersteward.com, and a quick search on YouTube provides a useful tutorial.

Besides the digital apps, the Daughters of St. Paul have six CDs available for download on iTunes and will soon have books available for e-readers like Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook and Apple's iPad.

Despite all the apps, smartphones and fancy devices, however, the mission of evangelization for the Daughters of St. Paul -- and for the church -- remains the same today as 2,000 years ago in St. Paul's time.

"All of these things are means," Sister Kathryn said. "They are a way to reach out to a lot of people at once. That's really the essence of our mission, to evangelize out."

Web-savvy Priesthood

Deacon Greg has an interesting post on priests and the use of technology for the mission:

More priests are using the Internet to do their job, according to Zenit:

A new study about the use of digital technology by priests worldwide shows that the Internet has become a frequently utilized tool in homily preparation, evangelization and pastoral support.

The PICTURE (Priests' Information and Communication Technologies Use in Their Religious Experience) study was presented Monday in a press conference at Vatican Radio.

Cardinal Claudio Hummes, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy underlined the "new cultural world" of digital technologies.

This study, he explained, aimed to take a snapshot of the actual use that priests make of technology, in order to be more effective in reaching the heart of the greatest changes in the cultural world.

The study was carried out by the NewMinE (New Media in Education Lab) of the Universita della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland, in collaboration with the School of Institutional Social Communications of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, and with the support of the Congregation for Clergy...

...The average age of the respondents was 48 years old, and the average number of years ordained was 20.

The study showed that 94.7% of priests worldwide access the Internet on a daily basis for a variety of activities.

Of the respondents, 82.8% have access to a laptop and 81.2% to a desktop computer.

Other forms of access to technology include 90.6% of priests who have a cell phone, 73.1% who utilize digital cameras, 44.0% who possess an MP3 player and 25.7% who have other handheld devices.

Some 42% of priests expressed the belief that the use of digital technology has improved their performance in their mission.

Check out the rest here.

Exponential Times!

I found this at Patrick Madrid's site and I found it to be actually pretty amazing... and disturbing!

Benedict XVI : in the media, a voice in service of peace

I think that the purpose of a communications tool like this one is to help build up a large family that knows no borders. One in which, with its variety of cultures and languages, all people are brothers and sisters. In this way they represent a force for peace. My wish to all those who are listening to me right now is that they may feel truly involved in this great dialogue of truth. As we know, in the world of communications, contrasting voices make themselves heard as well. Thats why its all the more important that this voice exists, a voice that really puts itself at the service of the truth, of Christ, and thus serves peace and reconciliation in the world.

Update: Pope Benedict encourages young people to use technology for evangelization!

The following comes from the Catholic News Service:

Pope Benedict XVI asked young Catholics to use their computers, Facebook accounts, blogs and Internet video posts to share with their peers the joy of faith in Christ.

"Be sure to announce the Gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm," the pope told young people in his message for the 2009 celebration of World Communications Day.

"Human hearts are yearning for a world where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth and where identity is found in respectful communion," said Pope Benedict's message, which was released at the Vatican Jan. 23.

The theme for the 2009 World Communications Day, which will be celebrated May 24 in most dioceses, is "New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship."

Releasing the message -- which included e-mailing it directly to 100,000 young Catholics around the world and asking them to forward it or post it on their Web sites -- the Vatican also announced that it would take a further step into the digital age by making video of the pope available on YouTube, a video-sharing Web site.

In his message, Pope Benedict said that if used creatively and correctly new computer technologies can help people meet the human longing to connect with others and share the search for goodness, beauty and truth.

Of course, he said, people must "avoid the sharing of words and images that are degrading of human beings, that promote hatred and intolerance, that debase the goodness and intimacy of human sexuality or that exploit the weak and vulnerable."

And praising the way young people use the Internet to form and maintain friendships, he also cautioned against trivializing friendship by not forming real, face-to-face relationships.

"It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop online friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation," Pope Benedict said.

"If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development," the pope said.

Still, Pope Benedict said, new technologies have an "extraordinary potential" to bring people together, to help them share information, to rally them to work for good causes and to educate.

"They respond to a fundamental desire of people to communicate and to relate to each other," he said.

"When we find ourselves drawn toward other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God's call -- a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion," Pope Benedict said.

Much of the pope's message was addressed to the "digital generation," to young people who have grown up using computers and cellular phones, e-mail and text messaging.

He asked them "to bring the witness of their faith to the digital world" and to write openly about the joys of faith when they write their profiles on social-networking sites or blogs.

The first step in evangelization is to understand the culture in which the Gospel will be proclaimed, he said, and young Catholics are the ones who have that understanding of their peers and of the Internet culture they use to communicate.

"You know their fears and their hopes, their aspirations and their disappointments," the pope told young Catholics. "The greatest gift you can give to them is to share with them the good news of a God who became man, who suffered, died and rose again to save all people."

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, told reporters Jan. 23 that the message was distinctive for the sense of trust and openness it showed toward new technologies and for the fact that it was addressed primarily to young Catholics.

Msgr. Paul Tighe, secretary of the council, said people who have grown up with computer technology "and integrated it naturally into their lifestyles" communicate, learn, get information and engage in political and social activities differently than people over 40 years old, the so-called "digital immigrants."

But, he said, young people and anyone else using the new technologies need to be careful about the content they are generating, sharing or drawing to the attention of others.

"We are all aware of the risks of news forms of cyberbullying and abusive postings that have emerged in recent years," he said.