A month-long social media conversation on Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life) began this week. The conversation, which will be facilitated by the United States Diocese of Arlington, is open to all. Its focus is on the encyclical which reaffirms artificial birth control is “intrinsically wrong”. People interested in participating can follow Read more
Pope Francis’s use of social networking tools has seen him attract 35 million Twitter followers. Launched by Benedict XVI in December 2012, the account is available in nine languages. Since taking over the @Pontifex account, Francis’s followers have grown steadily, especially in English, which has 11 million followers. There are a further 13 million Spanish language Read more
Pope Francis’s much anticipated encyclical on the environment will be titled “Laudato Sii” (Praised Be) and will be released on June 16, a report states. A Twitter posting by a Spanish journalist from an event at the Vatican publishing house responsible for printing official documents revealed the information. The encyclical will be given an Italian Read more
A warning has been issued about the spiritual dangers of the social media phenomenon “Charlie Charlie Challenge” in which young people invoke a demon. The challenge, which has been trending on Twitter, is seen as a poor man’s Ouija board. In a demonstration of the increasing power of social media, in slightly more than two Read more
Facebook is Catholic and Twitter is Protestant, according to a UK Catholic priest and moral theologian. Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith wrote that for “a digital illustration of respective theological worldviews, look at the two giants of social media”. The priest wrote that Facebook is “cheerful, friendly, conciliatory” and “tells the faithful how they must proceed step Read more
Nearly one in five Americans observed Lent last year. This year, more than 400,000 tweeted about their fast. Food and technology remained the most popular categories that tweeting Americans reported giving up in 2015. The top five choices: School, chocolate, Twitter, alcohol, and social networking All ideas consistently popular for Christians since Smith began using Read more
An Irish priest has taken a selfie in the pulpit and is using the image to spread the Gospel through social media. Fr Gabriel Egan took the selfie standing in the pulpit at the Redemptorist church at Mount St Alphonsus in Ireland during a solemn Novena. It has been seen by more than 200,000 people, Read more
The remarkable thing about Francis is not that he’s fundamentally changing the theology of the Church, nor that he’s carving out a space for the pope as a heavyweight in the economics public sphere. It’s that he’s consistently able to match the themes that animate his spirituality and faith with issues that people around the Read more
Pope Francis has put out a tweet against inequality which has conservative economic commentators fuming. On April 28, Pope Francis posted to his Twitter feed: “Iniquitas radix malorum.” In English this translates to “Inequality is the root of social evil”. The papal tweet came only days after French economist Thomas Picketty’s bestseller “Capital in the Read more