Indian Priests Turn to Digital Media

October 18, 2011: Catholic priests in India’s financial capital, Mumbai eagerly await an iPad application that encompasses the missal, as members of the clergy increasingly harness the internet and new media for resources, said Ashley D'Mello in an article published in the Times of India. Technology and religion may be unlikely bedfellows but the Catholic Church, for one, is encouraging the union. After the Vatican’s approval of an iPad application that encompasses the missal (a liturgical book containing prayers, instructions and texts for the celebration of Mass) last year, priests in Mumbai are eyeing it.
While the iPad has still to make deep inroads, the missal available on the internet from various Catholic organizations has become extremely popular. Fr Nigel Barrett, assistant editor of Catholic weekly The Examiner, points out that an increasing number of priests in Mumbai are now using the internet for the Catholic missal as well as to fine-tune their sermons.
“Some of them are also using the iBreviary,” he says. The iBreviary is an application that has brought the book of daily prayers used by priests on to iPhones.
Developed by Fr Paolo Padrini, a consultant with the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications, who also developed the iPad missal, it has been downloaded by over 2,00,000 people worldwide.