The church of Santa Maria Regina Pacis di Ostia, 20 miles from the Vatican offers the novel scheme through its website . Father Don Ludovico Barbangelo, the church’s priest, said that his idea was “well received by the faithful”, and is “a little gesture that helps lots of people”, particularly “those further away from the church” and “the people who can’t come to mass or those who want to maintain constant contact with us, given that the church isn’t open 24 hours a day.”
The scheme has so far proved popular: nearly 700 candles have been “lit”, including one dedicated to victims of this year’s Abruzzo earthquake and another to a missing person.
However the church believes it can expand his virtual worship still further. “We’ve also downloaded some videos of masses. As for worship by video streaming, we’re thinking about it… we’ll see,” Fr Barbangelo told the Ansa news agency.
His initiative follows a similar expansion into new technology by the Vatican itself. In January this year Pope Benedict XVI encouraged “young Catholic believers” to “bring the witness of their faith to the digital world” and in May, the Vatican established ‘pope2you.net’, allowing worshippers to sign up for Facebook, iPod Touch and iPhone applications to receive messages from the Pontiff.
However, the Pope has also sounded a note of caution over the pervasiveness of the internet in the modern world, warning that “if the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction”.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to us or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that we agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
SIC: TCUK