Does the Church Know How to Reach the Modern World?

Brandon Vogt

Marshall McLuhan, a 1960s media prophet, was one of the first to predict how digital technology shapes culture. Decades before the Internet became mainstream, McLuhan warned of the unintended effects brought by each new communication tool. His still-famous phrase “the medium is the message” summarizes  his thoughts by pointing out that a particular medium shapes a message more than the content it carries.

For example, McLuhan, a late convert to Catholicism, would affirm that a sermon delivered through radio, through television, through a blog, and through YouTube would be received in drastically different ways. The radio sermon would be listened to with sustained attention, the television sermon would be viewed as entertainment, the blog sermon would be shallowly skimmed, and the YouTube sermon would be gauged by its visual and emotional effects.

Many Christians operate out of the belief that we can “communicate the same message through new means.” They assume what McLuhan adamantly denied, that communication mediums can be neutral. For better or worse, however, new media conditions whatever the Church shares through these technologies; how we think, relate, speak, read, worship, and pray are all influenced by these tools and the culture they create.

What does the future hold for the Church and new media? There will certainly be many negative trends, but here are three positive ones to look out for in the coming years:

Springtime of Evangelization

No great evangelists of the past two millennia could have conceived that within minutes they could have their messages beamed to billions of people across the world, cheaply and easily. St. Paul, the early Church Fathers, St. Francis Xavier, and Archbishop Fulton Sheen each would have given their right arm for access to our new media.

This technical ability has, in many secular spheres, birthed a “springtime” of evangelization. People who would never consider setting foot in a church are dialoguing with priests on  YouTube. Streaming videos and alluring websites encouraging inactive Catholics to return to the Church have already produced staggering results. And new media is connecting the Church with many difficult-to-reach groups: youth, young adults, the elderly and homebound, and those living in remote locations.

Young people, in particular, are often considered the most difficult demographic for the Church to evangelize. Yet over 96% of young adults have joined a social network, providing the perfect arena for the Church to meet them. Outside of new media, there has hardly been a more powerful evangelistic tool to reach young people.

Also, though many see the internet’s anonymity as a detriment, it can be beneficial. Back in the twentieth century, radio and television allowed Archbishop Fulton Sheen to reach a myriad of people who would never darken the doors of a church. The shows allowed these seekers to engage Catholicism in the privacy of their own homes, avoiding public embarrassment or critique.

Our modern new media provides this same dynamic of evangelizing through anonymity. People uneasy about religion feel comfortable exploring Christianity behind the safety of their computer screens.

The Church does advise, however, that true witness is always personal; that online evangelism should optimally lead to personal dialogue and relationship. Properly termed, then, this New media outreach is more “pre-evangelization” than “evangelization, “ but it does provide a monumental first step through doors — and screens — that have long been closed to religion.

Rise in Church Dialogue

Imagine a bishop responding to tweets from people in his diocese, or a priest using Facebook to discuss his Sunday homily. This type of online interaction between clergy and laypeople isn’t too much of a stretch. In fact, it is already happening in many places (follow @bishopcoyne ^[1] to see what I mean). New media is already breathing fresh life into communications between Church leaders and laypeople.

One major theme throughout the Church’s teachings on media is the value of dialogue. In recent centuries, numerous Church leaders have explained that the Church must be in constant conversation with the world, including both Catholics and non-Catholics. By its very nature, this conversation can’t be one-sided; it must be an authentic, two-way connection.

Traditionally, Church leaders have communicated through homilies, personal letters, and episcopal statements. Today, however, the digital world expects to respond and engage with those speaking with them. Instead of passively receiving information, online Catholics want to discuss it.

Admittedly, dialogue brings a couple of dangers. The first is that it potentially flattens structures of authority. It can promote an egalitarian state where the authority of ordained leaders is not always honored. For instance, if bishops, the legitimate shepherds of the Church, dialogue through new media, they run the risk of their voice becoming just “one of many.”

Also, online religious dialogue often evokes detractors. As Father Robert Barron attests through his many interactions on YouTube, the large majority of commenters and questioners are anti-authority, anti-religious, or anti-Catholic (or all three). Instead of worrying whether detractors will arise, however, Catholics should assume they will, and then prudently decide how to best engage them. What they shouldn’t do is let the fear of detraction prevent any type of discussion.

If dialogue is practiced in full awareness of these dangers, it can flourish. It’s at the heart of growth and community, both secular—see Socrates—and religious— see Jesus. Discussion gives the Church a human element, revealing her to be a living organism rather than a static institution.

Through prudent new media dialogue, leaders can help others develop a closer relationship to the Church, and therefore to Christ.

New media users will experience what two travelers found almost 2,000 years ago: “While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them” (Luke 24:15).

Fresh Wave of Religious Vocations

Today, when someone researches a particular company, the first place they turn is the internet. Likewise, when a Catholic is trying to find a local parish, many look online, gauging a parish simply by its website.

So it should come as no surprise that for many people discerning religious vocations, the internet plays a big role. A recent survey revealed that over 90% of those discerning a religious vocation said their inquiries were aided by the internet. That same survey showed that a religious community’s website was more essential than vocation directors, parish priests, parents, or friends when gathering vocational information. Simply put, the first place many people turn in their discernment process is not to a spiritual director but to Google.

Why is this? One reason is new media’s anonymity, as mentioned before. It allows users to comfortably explore things they would normally be hesitant to approach. A young woman might be uneasy about visiting a convent or committing to a discernment retreat, but in the comfort of her home she feels free to explore the characteristics of different religious orders.

Vocation Match (www.vocationmatch.com ^[2]) is one example of this in action. The site asks visitors a set of questions regarding personality type, living conditions, prayer styles, and hobbies, and then uses the answers to suggest compatible religious organizations. Other sites, like For Your Vocation (www.foryourvocation.org ^[3]), similarly use new media to aid those discerning their vocation.

Dioceses wondering how to use technology in this regard can imitate the successes of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Since the diocese began a vocational outreach page on Facebook ^[4], its number of seminarians has doubled.

Finally, religious orders that have embraced new media can expect a rise in interest. For example, the Daughters of St. Paul, the Paulist Fathers, and the Society of the Holy Child Jesus are all examples of religious orders with a strong New media presence—and a growing number of vocations. Just as young people in the past were energized by the thrill of missionary work, so these orders offer the chance to reach the world, albeit through new media.

Vocations won’t increase solely because a diocese or religious order has an attractive website or is active on Facebook. But new media can act as a vocational catalyst.

Adapted from The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet ^[5] (Our Sunday Visitor, 2011)

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Brandon Vogt is a Catholic writer and speaker who blogs at www.ThinVeil.net. He is also the author of The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet (Our Sunday Visitor, August 2011). He writes from Casselberry, FL.

Facebook and Catholic Evangelism

Catholic News Agency by Andrew Haines:

I spend too much time on Facebook. I’m working to fix that. Recently, I’ve gotten a little help from an unexpected place.



About 90% of my Catholic “friends” on Facebook drive me up a wall. Up. A. Wall. The newsfeed wall of my Facebook account, to be more specific.

I’ve got 700-and-some connections on the site — a pretty conservative number, all things considered. But lately I’ve found that I can’t log onto Facebook without being bombarded by pious images of (pastel colored) saints, public requests (and offers) to remember certain intentions during the rosary, and comment after comment linking the word “hugs” with “prayer warrior.”

All three together is enough to force my cursor back to the URL bar for an emergency trip to another site. Anywhere.

At first, I thought maybe my selection (or acceptance, really) of Facebook friends tended toward the zealously devout. But I began to realize, more and more, that being Catholic in a 2.0 world has become almost indistinguishable from emotivism. Social media is new soil for building up the Church. But many Catholics — “traditional” and “progressive,” alike — are failing to grasp the true meaning of Pope Benedict’s call toevangelize the “digital continent.”

The maxim to “be in the world, not of it” seems especially apropos, here. New media and web-2.0 apps are, quite definitely, a product of the world. And Catholics should be conscious and prudent when it comes to appropriating into personal life elements that can, quite easily, become vehicles for some very unholy content. There’s a hesitancy about social media — Facebook, Twitter, and the like — that causes believers to wonder just how such tools can (or ever could) serve the greater glory of God.

On the other hand, the potential of the interactive universe is too much to pass up. Where once we were limited to effecting Christian conversion in the hearts of our physical neighbors, now we can reach out to those around the globe and from entirely different walks of life. Catholics, as historical proselytizers, naturally desire to seize on such an opportunity.

What is happening though, I fear, is that caution is overtaking the evangelical spirit. Rather than pervading the world of the digital continent, we’ve begun setting up camp within it. In essence, we’ve begun to create our own digital continent. Instead of establishing beachheads and outposts with an eye to leading others toward Rome, we’ve begun to transport the comforts of the City into an electronic wilderness.

In short, many Catholics view the internet as a suitable place to grow in faith and virtue. But that view couldn’t be more wrong, or more destructive.

When Julius Caesar famously ventured across the Alps to meet the Helvetii and Belgae tribes, he never aimed to make Gaul his home. As a proud son of Rome, he sought to conquer the northern lands and their peoples, winning them for the glory of the Republic. The ultimate goal though was to expand Roman power, not to recentralize it in a foreign land. Caesar knew the value of preserving the patria; and in 49 BC, he returned there to inhabit it — and to rule it — himself.

The same thing is true for Catholics in the digital continent: there is a great deal to be won for the sake of the patria (the heavenly one more than the earthly). But the primary goal is not to inhabit a foreign land forever, but to introduce those who live there to the beauty of civilization.

Moreover, just as no good commander sets up a permanent outpost on foreign soil — for fear of becoming weak and indefensible — Catholics shouldn’t become too comfortable on the digital continent. They should be excellent navigators and explorers; but not inhabitants. Social media and web-2.0-based interaction are wonderful tools for sparking dialogue and conversion. But they don’t substitute for the human-to-human interaction that lies at the foundation of evangelical kerygma. Total conversion requires an encounter with a total person (i.e., the total Christ), and Christ is not incarnate in a digital body.

That Catholics seek to ‘conquer’ new media for the sake of the kingdom is laudable. But the longer we continue to relax in our surroundings — to make social media and the internet our home — the more at risk we become of losing what it is that makes us Christians: namely, our full participation in the living, breathing, human Christ, who is only truly present in the Eucharist.

Evangelism in a foreign land is fruitful only insofar as we can make an authentic call to discipleship to those who claim it as their home. That’s the goal of our progress in the digital continent — and it is helpful to recall that from time to time.

* Andrew Haines is president of the Center for Morality in Public Life and a PhD student in Philosophy at The Catholic University of America. He lives in Virginia with his wife, Kathleen, and their son.

A plan for the 'New Evangelization'

From The Integrated Catholic Life by Father Robert Barron

Some weeks ago, I gave a sermon in which I mentioned Keith Richards, the lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones. I recounted how struck I was by a passage from Richards’s autobiography in which the guitarist described the almost maniacal dedication with which he and his bandmates set out to learn Chicago blues. “Benedictines,” he said, “had nothing on us.” I urged my listeners to approach their spiritual lives with the same “Benedictine” focus and fervor that the young Rolling Stones had in regard to the blues. I was also quick to point out, with a laugh, that I didn’t want people to buy Richards’s autobiography for their teen-agers as Confirmation presents! Keith, I indicated, had walked down lots of bad paths. Now just after that Mass, I went out to breakfast with my sister and her family and my mother. My mother said, “Bobby, I thought your homily was fine, but I wish you hadn’t mentioned that awful Keith Richards, who is just the epitome of nothing!”

As anyone who knows me well can testify, I’m a big fan of Bob Dylan. I first came across his music when I was a teenager, and his songs have shaped my imagination and conditioned my thinking — even about religious matters — ever since. Accordingly, I have quoted Bob Dylan in most of my books and in many of my talks and DVD’s. In fact, in one of my recorded retreats, I referred to him as a hero of mine. Some people have complained about this, observing that Dylan was at one point in his life a drug addict and that the singer could hardly be described as “orthodox” in all of his opinions. How, therefore, could a Catholic priest quote him so favorably?

Around the same time I discovered Bob Dylan, I first read Thomas Merton’s autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain. This gripping narrative of a young man’s conversion from a worldly self-absorption to Catholicism and finally to the rigors of a Trappist life had a decisive impact on me, playing a key role in shaping my desire to become a priest. I have often said that Thomas Aquinas had the biggest influence on my mind and that Thomas Merton had the greatest influence on my spirit. Therefore, it should be no surprise that I have quoted Merton liberally in my writings and that I’ve used him rather extensively in my videos and retreats. My citation of Merton has also aroused opposition. Some have argued that his personal life, even after his conversion, was not without ambiguity and that his opinions, especially toward the end of his life, seemed to drift in the direction of syncretism and Buddhism.

Now, I think that my mother was a tad strong in characterzing Keith Richards as “the epitome of nothing,” but I would certainly confess that he leaves a great deal to be desired both in his theoretical convictions and his behavior. Furthermore, I would concur that Bob Dylan was, at least during the sixties, a drug addict and that his theological thinking would not exactly correspond to Catholic orthodoxy on every point; finally, I would agree that Thomas Merton, like many others in the sixties, got a little confused and consequently said and did some things that I wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend. And yet, I would strongly defend my decision to quote from these figures in my work. How come? First, I would point out that the citation of one statement from a given figure is by no means equivalent to a wholesale endorsement of everthing that person ever said or did. I admire Lincoln and quote him with enthusiasm, but I think that Lincoln’s understanding of God was, in many respects, deeply inadequate; I love certain of Picassos paintings, especially from his earlier periods, but I also think that some of his work is offensive; I have relied on Heidegger’s philosophy in my own theological work, but I hate the fact that, at least for a time, Heidegger was a Nazi sympathizer. My point is this: if I were limited to citing only those figures who were utterly correct in every aspect of their thinking and acting, I’d quote only Jesus and the Blessed Mother!

But more to it, I believe that the use of less than perfect figures is essential to the work of the new evangelization. Keith Richards is not a saint, but he’s well known in the counter-culture, and hence he can function as a lure to those who would never be tempted to darken the door of a church. Bob Dylan is not Thomas Aquinas, but he gives entrée to a world that Aquinas could never reach. Thomas Merton might have been a tad too open to the dialogue with Eastern religions, but that very openness makes him a point of contact with many outside the church. In point of fact, Thomas Aquinas himself cited, among many others, Aristotle (a pagan scientist), Moses Maimonides (a Jewish rabbi), Avicenna and Averroes (Muslim philosophers), and Origen (a theologian who had been condemned by the church for certain of his positions).

Thomas is my model in this regard. My fear is that a hyper-fussiness about the intellectual and moral integrity of those I cite would lock me into a feedback loop, a closed-in conversation with entirely like-minded people. Jesus told us to preach to all the nations, and Pope John Paul II urged us to reach out to the unevangelized world. In my judgment, we can’t afford to be too prim if this great mission is to beaccomplished.