The 'E-Moment' And The Gospel

Welcome to St. Anthony Messenger’s newest column. During the next 12 months we’re going to take a long look—in Web-sized pieces—at Web sites aimed at Catholics. We’ll consider some of the issues that the Internet is bringing to the Church.

I hope to share with you some of what we’ve learned since 1995 in developing AmericanCatholic.org and its sister sites: CatholicGreetings.org, PledgePeace.org, and, most recently, AmericanCatholicYouth.org. Along the way, we’ll examine questions that we think are most important as Catholics use the World Wide Web.

Real People

This won’t be a “techie” column. I want to go beyond the machine into the ultimate goals of the people who are operating it—both Web-site publishers and the millions who are searching the Web for useful information, inspiration and ways to connect with friends and family. The Web essentially is about people communicating with other people. And we believe that God speaks through people, events, all of creation.

Each month I’ll choose a parish site, a media site, an inspirational site and one outstanding site from any category to showcase. I welcome your suggestions. Send them to me by e-mail at: WebCatholic@franciscanmedia.org.

The E-Moment

No one can deny that the dawn of the third millennium has brought a communications revolution. One commentator called it the e-moment, a time when it’s “e-everything.” We all know that if we watch TV, listen to radio or read the paper. Pope John Paul II saw it coming more than a decade ago. In his encyclical Mission of the Redeemer he describes mass communications as the “new culture” into which the gospel must be integrated (#37).

That’s a theme to which I will return. Just as St. Paul preached the Christian message at the Areopagus in Athens, competing with philosophers, Christians today are placed side by side with every philosophy and faith in the listings of “spirituality” or “religion” at major Web indexes like Yahoo. How will we touch the minds and hearts of today’s searchers?