Is the user name a clue to the target audience?

By now Google’s bots have crawled, indexed and cached all over this story – allow me to join in the echo-chamber that is the intertubes: the Catholic Church has for the first time approved an iPhone/iPad app called ‘Confession‘ that helps guide worshippers through, well, confession. This comes in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI urging Christians last January to embrace digital communication and make their presence felt online.

The app takes users through the sacrament – in which Catholics admit their wrongdoings – and allows them to keep track of their sins and to examine their conscience based on personalised factors such as age, sex and marital status.

iPurgatory ...?

“Our desire is to invite Catholics to engage in their faith through digital technology,” Patrick Leinen of developer Little iApps told Reuters.

The firm said the app was developed with assistance from several priests and had been given the church’s imprimatur by Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne in Indiana.

In the few days since the announcement most of the 24/7ths of second news-cycle has centred on the never-going-to-get-old ‘X? There’s an app for that’ gag. In response, the Church has been been doing some serious back-pedalling (which admittedly is hard to do in a cassock) in an effort to correct the perception that Confession replaces, um, confession as a sacrament – however did people get so confused about this distinction? - and the need to be receive absolution from a priest.

So far, all controversy, no analysis. The lone exception I’ve come across was in a post from Father John Zuhlsdorf’s trail-blazing (for a Catholic priest) blog, whose review takes the reader step-by-step through what the app can do, providing copious screenshots along the way. I recommend you check it out for a detailed run-down.

He has also provided some pastoral criticism to which the developers have responded . They have now added a bit of text to the first page of the confession page on the bottom, “This app is intended to be used during the Sacrament of Penance with a Catholic priest only. This is not a substitute for a valid confession.” Because official sanction always clears up unwanted interpretations …

But while critical, it’s still coming from the home crowd. So, to some preliminary observations. First, some screenshots:

Despite the facade of embracing modernity, it didn’t take long for the Catholic Church to once again belie its name by singling out the occult as a sin. And I think some will think it a bit rich that it also considers ‘involvement in superstitious practices’ to be on the naughty list.

Then there’s the money-screenshot:

There it is – both masturbation and homosexuality! I wonder what Apple’s famously coherent App Store guidelines might have to say about that? Oh, that’s right:

19. Religion, culture, and ethnicity

19.1

Apps containing references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence will be rejected

The app also now prevents you from selecting priest as your vocation if you have also selected female as your sex in the user profile. Hmm …

Speaking of money, I think even the person in the street (actually, especially street people) will also think it a bit rich that the Church charges anything at all for the US$1.99 app. Surely the vast wealth of the Vatican and the massive tax-breaks that the Church enjoys are able to offset all its costs?

And so to the faint scent of simony that the app suggests: the crime of paying for sacraments. Now officially this is avoided by the insistence that it doesn’t replace the sacrament. As any Marshall McLuhan fan could tell you, however, the medium ends up being the main message – despite dogmatic correction, the app will inevitably be seen as a de facto sacrament.

In fact, as a devout Catholic, McLuhan would have been very disturbed by the Church’s ‘capitulation’ to technology. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, an information clearinghouse for all things Catholic, three-quarters of Catholics report that they never participate in confession, known as the sacrament of reconciliation, or that they do so less than once a year. The app can only accelerate the trend by acting as a substitute. Skype and chat priests and other ordained can only be a matter of time.

Then there would be the critics from within the Church who would agree that while it is right that the app not replace the sacrament of confession it doesn’t go far enough as a spiritual tool for the examination of conscience. As a former Catholic myself, I can attest that the app is a far cry from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, (composed from 1522-1524) are a brief set of Christian meditations, prayers and mental exercises, divided in four thematic ‘weeks’ of variable length, designed to be carried out over a period of 28 to 30 days. The main aim of the Exercises is the development within the human psyche of “discernment” (discretio), the ability to discern between good and evil spirits. Discernment is achieved in order to act “with the Grace of God”. Not only would an app adapted from the Exercises be truly Catholic and appeal more universally, attracting Protestant interest, but it would be a far cry from the infantile and mechanical authoritarian paint-by-numbers moral hazard that the Confession app reveals is now firmly a part of the institution of confession.

Of course, we finally come to the heart of the matter: will this be released for Android users? And if not, are we to surmise that its because they are more likely to be Protestant or – gasp – non-believers! Max Weber would be proud …

‘Catholic church gives blessing to iPhone app‘, BBC News (08/02/2011)

‘Bless me iPhone for I have sinned‘, Reuters (07/02/2010)

Manya Brachear, ‘iPhone, iPad offers confession, not absolution‘ Chicago Tribune (09/02/2011)

‘Sorry, Catholics can’t confess via the new iPhone app – Vatican‘ Faithworld BLOG Reuters (09/02/2011)

Terry Mattingly, ‘Time for confession at Times of London‘ GetReligion.org (09/02/2011)

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, ’REVIEW: The new iPhone app for confession – useful but flawed‘ Father Z’s Blog (08/02/2011)

‘Bogus Claims About iPhone Confession App‘ Catholic League (08/02/2011)

Alan Berning

Trying to clear a bottleneck of stories I haven’t posted on. Mea maxima culpa.

Heidi Campbell ‘Can an online community be a church ? IRS says “No”!‘, When Religion Meets New Media (24/8/10)

Joshua M. Z. Stanton ‘Cyber Dialogue: The Future of Inter-Religious Engagement‘, Patheos (6/9/10)

Eli Yishai ‘Shas minister shuts down online payments on Shabbat, holidays‘, Haaretz.com (14/9/10)

Matthew Razak ‘Fallout Online viral advertising moves to religion‘, Destructoid (18/9/2010)

Reuters ‘Vatican Bank head in money laundering probe–sources‘, FaithWorld (21/9/10)
Vatican probably the only place in the world that allows people to use ATM’ s in Latin.

Mollie ‘Code name Esther‘, GetReligion (1/10/10)
The Biblical connection of the computer worm that got through Iran’s Digital Veil (that’s what we’re calling it, by the way).

Reuters ‘France charges man for burning, urinating on Koran‘, FaithWorld (5/10/10)

Randall Munroe ‘Online Communities 2‘, xkcd (5/10/10)
You can see “Religious Blogs” in the lower right-hand corner, east of the “Sea of Zero (0) Comments” and southwest of the “Blogosphere (Core Region)”.

tmatt ‘Bible-toting bullies with webcams?’, GetReligion (5/10/10)
and in the same vein
Jeff Kunerth ‘Religion plays different roles in cyberbullying debate‘, Orlando Sentinel (5/10/10)
as well as
Erica Brown ‘Outrage at humanity’s use of technology‘, Washington Post (7/10/10)

Elizabeth Drescher ‘Gen X, Gadgets, and God‘, Religion Dispatches (8/10/10)

Reuters ‘Brazil “values voters” go YouTube against prez hopeful Rousseff‘, FaithWorld (8/10/10)

Phew! That’s broken the back of it. Some more tomorrow, then we return to our regular programming schedule.

It has been confirmed that the verdict will be handed down on the 30th of September, as I previously speculated the dating of the texting ban extension indicated.

‘Indian court to rule on Ayodhya mosque row on Thursday‘, Reuters.com (28/9/10)

The Indian government has banned bulk texting for three days until the publication by the High Court as to whether the Babri mosque is on Muslim or Hindu land. The poor Jains don’t even get a look-in.

Built in the 16th century on land that Hindus believe to be the birthplace of Rama, antipathy about the mosque came to a head in 1992 when it was demolished by a Hindu mob, leading to tit-for-tat attacks around the country.

Presumably the government is worried, given that the Bombay riots were fuelled by simple media reports, that bulk texting could result in much better organised rioting. I suppose the flash mobs of the Cronulla riot stand testament to that. I wonder if they’re going to ban talk-back radio for the next 3 days as well, although the Editors’ Guild of India has recommended that media outlets should avoid being inflammatory

Reuters ‘India bans bulk text messages before Ayodhya mosque verdict‘, Reuters.com (23/9/10)

Also, I wrote a fiddly post about the following story that got destroyed by WordPress (grr…). I was too annoyed to start from scratch so here’s a link:

Press Trust of India ‘On Facebook, young Muslims turn away from Islam‘, NDTV.com (7/9/10)

UPDATE: The Supreme Court (superior, as in America, to the previously mentioned High Court) has delayed Friday’s verdict in a bid to settle out of court. This seems unlikely, as both sides remain adamant. The government has not yet issued a repeal of their bulk texting ban.

Reuters ‘Supreme Court orders Ayodhya mosque verdict postponed‘, Reuters.com (23/9/10)

UPDATE 2: The ban on bulk texting has been extended until the end of September. It’s possible that gives some kind of indication on the date of a verdict.

I wonder if marketing companies or something are affected?

UPDATE 3: Google is my friend. American ad rag Advertising Age has a story on how the ban affects marketing companies in India.The Economic Times of India report one telco exec estimating an industry loss of 30 million rupees (under US$1 million), although that was based on the 3 rather than 7 day ban. They noted “Most cellphone operators and industry lobbies had no comment on the ban”, which struck me as strange.

Apparently the government may be further authorised to ban all SMS services in “sensitive” areas when the verdict comes down.

Kunur Patel ‘India SMS Ban Handicaps Massive Social Net‘, Advertising Age (24/9/10)

In honour of the Pope’s highly successful tour of England (a.k.a the Roman Invasion) and in the spirit of complete bias in reporting, I’ve decided to play advocatus diaboli to Andrew’s advocatus Dei.

It’s amazing what you find by being literal with Google: who would have thought that there was a Jewish iPhone Community website: I mean, apart from the Jewish iPhone community?

In flat contradiction to the offlining movement, the Jewish iPhone community is advocating for Yom Kippur in glorious MP3.

Similarly a Cincinnati-based congregation is offering live stream of High Holidays services to the pocket of your choice.

Offlining during Yom Kippur is an understandably Jewish response to contemporary hyper-connectivity. Yet, both of my examples above fit well into another very  Jewish tradition, that of tikkun olam (תיקון עולם‎), a Hebrew phrase that means “repairing the world.” The concept originated in the early rabbinic period from the performance of ritual mitzvot (commandments or religious obligations). It was given new meaning under Lurianic Kabbalah, in which God contracted part of God’s self into vessels of light to create the world. These vessels shattered and their shards became sparks of light trapped within the material of creation. Prayer, especially contemplation of various aspects of the divinity (sephirot), releases these sparks and allows them to reunite with God’s essence.

The question is, can cyber-space also contain these sparks to redeem? Given the existence of 4chan it’s easy to argue that the virtual world needs all the repairing it can get.

Jewish iPhone Community website, ‘Yom Kippur in mp3‘

Jonah Mandel, ‘Rosh Hashana online; Yom Kippur services go mobile‘, The Jerusalem Post (09/07/2010)

Dr. Lawrence Fine, ‘Tikkun in Lurianic Kabbalah‘, MyJewishLearning.com

BONUS REFERENCE! Blogger Velveteen Rabbi gathers together a whole bunch of Yommy sparks from across the cyber-expanse here and here.

Offlining Inc.

Jewish ad execs Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum have created a campaign for people to disconnect from social media for Yom Kippur. The pair have a co-opted an old series of posters for Levy’s Jewish Rye Bread to create a number of cautionary tales involving celebrities.

Even Irish coppers like it

via ‘Try the OffLining Pledge for Yom Kippur?‘, Read the Spirit (17/9/10)

Apple’s App Store have, to the initial relief of developers, finally released guidelines for app development. Previously devs were left in the dark as to what was and wasn’t kosher, and were often given no idea as to why apps were rejected for hosting in the App Store. They aren’t supposed to be publicly available, but The Washington Post has posted them in extenso.

The guidelines are somewhat vague, however. Regarding satire:

14.1 Any app that is defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited, or likely to place the targeted individual or group in harm’s way will be rejected.

but…

14.2 Professional political satirists and humorists are exempt from the ban on offensive or mean-spirited commentary.

So only “professionals” are allowed to be funny. One wonders, also, what the following article:

15.3 “Enemies” within the context of a game cannot solely target a specific race, culture, a real government or corporation, or any other real entity.

might mean for app tie-ins of, say, the next Call of Duty game might do regarding the Germans in WWII.

I cite here, then, the section regarding religion, in full (all two articles of it):

19. Religion, culture, and ethnicity

19.1
Apps containing references or commentary about a religious, cultural or ethnic group that are defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited or likely to expose the targeted group to harm or violence will be rejected
19.2
Apps may contain or quote religious text provided the quotes or translations are accurate and not misleading. Commentary should be educational or informative rather than inflammatory

I’m not even going to comment on 19.1, but 19.2 provides all sorts of theological quandaries regarding the accuracy of different translations (not even mentioning the fact that the Qur’an is not considered the Qur’an in anything but its original Arabic). And “misleading”? Sounds like a lot of scriptural exegesis from the last 2,000 years. Who’s going to be the arbiter of this? From what I understand, there are a lot of religious apps on the App Store.

Shane Richmond ‘Apple’s new App Store guidelines: if you want to criticise a religion, write a book‘, The Telegraph (9/9/10)

PS: An awesome article on Islamic apps I didn’t get around to posting about at the time:
Gary R. Bunt ‘Surfing the App Souq: Islamic Applications for Mobile Devices‘, CyberOrient 4:1, 2010

Rabbi Ben Greenberg has collected a number of readings from the Torah – re-tweeted by a selection of Jewish users – into a book available from internet self-publisher Lulu.

Not everyone is pleased with the marriage of religion and social media, however, and Corey Hodges warned against obscuring Christianity beneath layers of entertainment, in his blog for the Salt Lake Tribune. Describing an unnamed church in Houston that encourages parishioners to tweet comments and questions during the sermon that appear on screens behind the pastor who later addresses them. Surely a greater danger is someone deciding to write “this sermon is lame” for all to see.

Social media and religion are not irreconcilable, however, as devotees of this fine blog are no doubt aware. Writing for Arizona State University’s State Press Joseph Hermiz draws the same analogy as A. Prof. Mark Goodacre of Duke, that in the 1st century Paul himself utilised the most advanced social medium of the time, the epistle, to evangelise the Mediterranean.

More traditional folk are still serviced by the digital revolution, however. The 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation of the Tanakh has been made into an audio recording, replacing the previous standard audio of the JPS’ 1917 translation. The audio stretches over 60 hours and is published online in weekly podcasts.

Joseph Hermiz ‘“Tweeting” the Torah, bringing religion online‘, State Press (19/10/09)
Corey J. Hodges ‘Tweeting in the pews? Pray it ain’t so‘, Salt Lake Tribune (15/10/09)

We’ve been told that the iPod’s earphones may damage our hearing and distract us from traffic, but now a scholar from the al-Azhar mosque in Cairo has warned that listening to recordings of the Qur’an is dangerous for the soul.

Sheik Gamal Qutb has warned that if someone listens to the Qur’an in public (presumably meaning on headphones while out in public, as I’d imagine public broadcasts of the Qur’an were something different) they are inevitably distracted, and so disrepect it. A theologian from al-Azhar, however, Ahmed as-Sayeh, countered that

“Listening to Quran in public places does not imply any carelessness,” he told al-Arabiya. “On the contrary, those who do that honor the Quran to the extent that they need to listen to it everywhere.”

This comes two years after the Saudi government banned imams from reading the Qur’an over the phone for night prayers during Ramadan.

There’s an interesting piece on the matter at ReligionDispatches, that interprets Qutb’s issue in light of Marxist theory and “passive listening”.

Hussein Rashid ‘Marxism Meets Al-Azhar: Can You Listen to the Qur’an on Tape?‘, ReligionDispatches (2/9/09)

Just like in the Stone Age!

Seminarians at the Redemptoris Mater House of Formation (peopled by those called from the Neocatechumenal Way) on the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization campus in Denver (they can also be found all over the world, including Perth and Sydney) lead a more disciplined life than their brothers in other, typical seminaries. They are not allowed to keep their own money, but must instead ask for it from their superiors to make purchases of any sort. They do not keep mobile phones or personal computers. They must generally always be accompanied by a peer. This stands in stark contrast to the life lead by another, larger seminary on the same campus, St John Vianney.

SJV mirrors contemporary seminary life. The men take notes on laptops, carry Blackberries, live in single rooms, gather for TV-watching in a common room, maintain their own blogs and spread news about snow-cancelled classes on Facebook. Basically, that’s the rule when it comes to contemporary Catholic seminary life in the U.S.

The men of Redemptoris Mater — the name is Latin for “Mother of the Redeemer” — take notes on steno pads, must seek permission before hanging anything on their residence hall walls and share everything, down to a single e-mail address on a second-floor computer.

I’m reminded of a glimpse I had once through the window of the monastery at St Peter Julian’s on George Street from a bus stop across the road. All I could see was an ink-jet printer, and for some reason the mental image of a robed monk dealing with a paper jam has stuck with me since.

As far as I can tell, the Redemptoris Mater boys aren’t forced to speak (Vat.) Latin to each other at all times, so they should count themselves lucky.

apud Eric Gorski ‘Catholic seminarians embrace strict rules‘, msnbc.com (29/8/09)