Dossier, Volume 14 #4

A Catholic Tour of the World Wide Web

Site names in this article are linked, so you can go directly to the websites. If you've already read the article and just want a list of the sites with their URLs, click on this block of text to jump to the list.

Christianity took centuries to circle the globe, but in a few years Catholics, as organizations and as individuals, have established a substantial presence on the exploding World Wide Web (WWW). Thousands of Catholic Web sites contain everything from theological documents and religious art to retreat bookings and rosaries for sale. Of 1,800 denominational Christian sites listed on Yahoo!, one of the most popular Web-search tools, Catholicism has 316 (the Baptists are next with 199). And Yahoo! doesn't list everything.

Looking at sites while developing Compass's Web site, the quality that impressed me most was availability. On the Web I, as a non-Catholic, have greater access to Catholicism in all its facets than ever before. The future role of the WWW is the subject of much conjecture, but it is already clear that as a means of allowing people into one another's institutions, beliefs and lives, it dwarfs the invention of the printing press. What follows is an eclectic tour of a small portion of what I've found in Catholic (mostly) cyberspace.

Since the Web is primarily a visual medium, I'll begin with art and architecture. TV brought new meaning to "armchair traveller," but the WWW allows you to go where you want when you want and linger as long as you like.

The huge, award-winning Christus Rex et Redemptor Mundi, one of the world's best virtual museums, houses thousands of pictures of the art and architecture of Vatican City, the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museums, and the Raphael Stanze and Loggia. From Christus Rex, you can move quickly by hypertext link to "a worldwide tour of churches, cathedrals and monasteries" called the Splendors of Christendom.

One of the stops on this tour is Assisi, where you can visit the Basilica of San Francesco (built 1228-30 to hold St. Francis's body) with the Giotto frescos in the upper church and the Chimabue portrait in the lower one, and Santa Chiara where St. Clare lies. If your mouse-finger is tired, skip the views of the Assisi countryside and go directly to San Damiano, restored by St. Francis, to see the cross that spoke to him, the most beautiful crucifix I've ever seen, as well as the choir used by St. Clare and the dining room where the sacrament was hidden when the Saracens attacked in 1241. Moving on, visit the exquisitely painted Porziuncola (Little Portion) where Clare received her habit, founding the Poor Clares. This is a satisfying travel site: balanced visuals and information, easy navigation, speedy graphics--and excellent content.

Not on the Splendors of Christendom tour, although certainly splendid, is one place where travel by modem is, for some of us, the only option: Mount Athos. Women are still forbidden on the craggy Greek peninsula that is home to twenty self-governing monastic territories. Fortunately two universities provide Web tours. Both contain maps, information and pictures. Democratus University of Thrace' Mount Athos site has large photos of the monasteries (exteriors only) and the gorgeous views from them, as well as some icons and paintings. You can tour the monasteries easily in geographical or hierarchical order. Athos, the Holy Mountain, at the National Technical University of Athens, is not as well developed: there are not (yet) pictures for all twenty monasteries. Why bother? The interiors! The full-size photos of the first monastery, Moni Lavras, show interiors of breathtaking beauty.

The Canadian entry on the Splendors of Christendom tour, St. Patrick's Basilica, Ottawa's first English-speaking Roman Catholic church, provides a good example of how individual parishes use the Web in their ministry. But its relevance here is in the photographs of the church. After the preceding sites, the plain lines and simpler decoration of nineteenth-century Canadian church architecture are refreshing.

There is all sorts of religious art on the Web. Icon collections abound (MIT Orthodox Christian Fellowship's Icon Archive, Christus Rex's Ukrainian Icon Gallery, the Gallery of Eastern Orthodox Icons); Celtic art is available at the Celtic Christianity site. Botticelli's Madonna is at World Art Treasures; Rubens's Madonna in a Garland of Flowers graces Catholic Online's front page; Roselli's Crossing the Red Sea is tucked away on Kevin Malcolm's Religious Orders Page.

Finally, there are the gardens. Christus Rex has images of the impressive Vatican gardens. On a smaller scale, the Mary Garden Foundation, using the Internet to continue its mission of documenting and disseminating information about flowers named in medieval times as symbols of the Virgin, presents the Mary Garden Website. Along with plentiful textual information, the site offers photos of established Mary Gardens.

The WWW Bible Gateway has seven English versions of the Bible plus Latin and five other languages. You can search by citation or keyword/phrase, or use the concordance. It's fun to pick a passage and see the variations from Young's Literal Translation.

Church documents, papal encyclicals and Catholic writings, both ancient and contemporary, are available from many sites, but the best sources of information about Catholicism I've found are at Catholic Answers and the New Advent Catholic Web site. Catholic Answer Tracts is a large number of articles, many previously published in This Rock, addressing the major points of theology. New Advent provides a shorter collection called Quick Questions, as well as a doctrinal concordance, making this wealth of material more accessible to the reader.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, also at New Advent, is a volunteer project transferring the 1913 edition to digital form (there is contact information for those who want to help). This site doesn't highlight the medium's graphical capabilities, but hypertext links make cross-references a breeze. Some of the reading is challenging (I found "Original Sin" especially so), but other pieces, such as the long article on scapulars, are fascinating. The Encyclopedia is also useful in sorting out the multitude of saints.

For more on saints, Ed Lopresto's Index of Saints provides links to biographies or articles not included in the Encyclopedia. Catholic Online's Saints Page includes a FAQ [Frequently Asked Questions] (how saints are chosen, when the tradition began, why Catholics pray to saints, etc.), lists of angels (with concordance) and patron saints (patron saints are everywhere on the Web) and the Irish calendar of saints (Celtic saints are at Celtic Christianity).

Apparitions constitute another intriguing aspect of Catholicism. Catholic Apparitions of Jesus and Mary has a long list of appearances, far more than I was aware of, with their current status and links to any Web sites about them. Lourdes, Fatima, Guadalupe and the recent Medjugorje have several sites each. The Catholic Goldmine offers an annotated diagram of the Guadalupe image; Our Lady of Guadalupe has a selection of downloadable graphics (have the Lady on your desktop!). Medjugorje Web offers maps (for a real-time trip) and free rosaries (for donations of string--nylon only, please; it doesn't shred), currently back-ordered as a result of demand. From Catholic Apparitions, you can join a mailing list that discusses apparitions (approved only).

The Internet seems a strange place for prayer and meditation, but there are Web sites devoted to these activities, and many others have prayer sections or e-mail petitions and prayer requests. The Mass at St. Ann's Shrine in Scranton, Pennsylvania, presents Today's Mass, with prayers, readings and homily. The Marian Hour Radio Rosary offers a history of the Rosary, explanations of the Mysteries, prayer texts, a broadcast schedule and free rosaries. Rosaries of All Kinds lists forty-one prayers and explains twenty-six. Catholic Prayers: Salt for the Internet, possibly the largest collection, has such essentials as a cat's and two dogs' prayers--my pick for most distinctive prayer site.

But the most exciting is the Liturgy of the Hours, which offers a Divine Office designed to allow the laity to participate. Set your bookmarks and one mouse-click will take you to today's Invitatory, Matins, Vespers or Office of Readings (Compline and the Little Hours to come). Hotlinks to the Bible Gateway and Catholic Encyclopedia provide quick access to readings and biographies. I hope the site design, when completed, will reflect the structure of the liturgy, making it more attractive to use. Perhaps they can arrange to have the Desert monks (see below) illuminate it for them.

If you still need inspiration for your morning meditation, there's the electronic version of closed eyes and stabbing finger: the Random Bible Verse Generator pulls up a passage from the Bible Gateway.

The Internet has been characterized as an impersonal place, but Web sites provide fascinating glimpses of the people behind them. Many Catholic sites are put up by individuals. One of the most impressive is The Catholic Goldmine, by Chris Miller, an American college student. And what a goldmine it is: I spent an entire afternoon checking out the links and didn't get to them all, and I've been back often, using it as a jumpgate to other sites. Categories of links range from apologetics to Catholic shortwave radio.

On the Web, you can visit the Taizé Community, the Virtual Diocese of Partenia (see the interview with Jacques Gaillot in this issue) and the Benedictine monks at Christ in the Desert Monastery (read the account of a real visit in this issue) and each site will show you something of the people involved. While the first two sites make good use of the medium, the last one stretches its boundaries with audio files of Gregorian chants and ancient liturgy, e-mail prayer requests, giftshop ordering and retreat bookings, and a history of scriptoria and samples of the electronic version of illuminated manuscripts. The original artwork on this site is a refreshing change from "canned" images and well worth the visit.

Many orders and organizations present their history and current activities on the Web, among which one finds the occasional gem. Speaking of the relationship between labour and prayer in her essay on the contemplative life, Mother Francis PCC, Abbess of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in Roswell, New Mexico, says, "It is thus that a basketful of weeds pulled up from the cloister garden may shine as gold and curl as incense in the sight of the Lord." ["The Cloistered Poor Clare Nuns," Poor Clares Colettines site.]

Catholic cyberspace is not without humour, although some sites are not for the easily offended (or hard to amuse). The Homepage of God offers a "WWW Absolution Service" (I got a busy signal); The God Page hosts Heaven's Giftshop selling "absolution, divine protection [various levels] or a souvenir." Dextera Domini (Declaration on Pastoral Care of Left-handed Persons) and Consumer Report: Religion (where Catholicism ranked second behind "Christianity" [sic] in consumer satisfaction) make diverting reading. At the Confession Booth, you select from the Scroll of Sins (a very large file) with radio buttons. And there is The Way Cool Adventures of Net Nun, Sr. Mary Peter Norton, who "didn't set out to commit computer crimes...."

For more serious diversion, New Advent offers quizzes, including the World's Toughest Catholic Quiz, and humorous pieces such as "Microsoft Bids to Acquire the Catholic Church."

The WWW will likely become the world's biggest shopping mall, with the annoyance of finding a parking space replaced by waiting for files to load: you'll still spend more time than you want getting the things you need. But you can shop the world; what's available is amazing. My favourite (so far) is "Have Robes, Will Travel." Bishop David L. Cooper OMM "will travel anywhere in the world to perform weddings." Mind you, outside southern California, he wants airfare and hotel in addition to his fees. He also does baptisms, facilitates quick annulments and can provide additional priests and/or rabbis as required for the ceremonies.

Other products you might not go looking for on (or off) the Web: fortune cookies with Bible verses inside (Scripture Cookies), Virgin screen savers (Mother of All Screensavers [URL no longer active]), t-shirts labelled "100% ROMAN Catholic" (100% Roman Catholic Products), birthstone rosaries (Rosaries Plus; both ladder and standard models), and chasubles or First Communion outfits from Italy (Desta Paramenti Sacri produces other religious clothing, but my Italian allows reporting only on items pictured). You can also order custom-made icons (DominICON; Brendan McAnerny OP also does icon-painting classes, slide-lectures and retreats), holy water (Holy Jordan Water; Internet special: $11.99 delivered to your door, in an attractive glass and pewter container), and Trappist Preserves from St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts.

There are many starting points for finding Catholic Web sites (see the Compass Links page for several), but the Web is rapidly expanding. If you want to try keeping up with Catholic-related Web sites, there's one resource you must have: Tim deRyan's Catholic Internet Directory. The best part is the e-mail subscription service announcing new Web sites. Check them out religiously as they come online and you might just keep up. How you find time to revisit your old favourites is up to you.