No, that’s not a line from Batman, it’s a reference to the Vatican’s online activities — the latest news is that the Pope is starting up a YouTube channel.
The last Pope was a bit of a digital evangelist, something I learned in the 18 months I spent (on and off) producing his obituary while I was at Sky News. Slightly morbid perhaps but they even have a webcam feed from his tomb.
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And there’s an immense amount of religious digital buzz around sites like Facebook with groups of people who become fans of religious figures and saints. There’s even an app with daily prayers.
What I find interesting is the way people are sometimes so surprised to find out all this is going on. I guess religions are about like-minded communities forming bigger communities and spreading the word peer-to-peer. ‘Send-to-a-friend’ is just a modern version of the missionary idea.
Plenty of people are offering opinions about how Obama is using the internet to ‘spread the word’ – it’ll be interesting to see how the Pope grows his digital strategy. Perhaps a Twitter confessional is next on the development list?
[I use this Pope example simply because it's in the news today and and it made me think about how communities are using the web to communicate. Plenty of other religions/religious communities are using the internet to communicate as well and offer equally interesting examples.]
