Blog 3: Catholic Tradition as Media Backstory

The Catholic church is something that is seen on grand scale around the world. As technology is used by everyone on a daily basis, we begin to propose the question of, how does the church organization feel and use the technology around church? Every day the world of technology continues to expand, there are many ways that the Catholic Church has begun to use technology in their favor.

According to Sharon Iorio (1993), “I love the Bible and am thoroughly convinced that it’s God’s word to us, as old as it is. [….] I desperately wanted to communicate it. And I just realized the traditional sermon of a half-hour monologue wasn’t doing it. I felt that having some king of visual effect would help” (p. 222). Many churches have started to adapt toward the world of technology and have used it to communicate the text of the Bible in creative ways like putting up screens and showing visuals or allowing sermons to be communicated through pictures on Facebook or videos that help give a further understanding of what is being preached every Sunday .

In the image you can see a representation of a religious scene in the Bible. This image gives you a deeper understanding of how the church used the main medium at that point in history that was most appropriate and most used. It helps the idea of text because it is an image that may be used to represent the birth of Jesus Christ. It is one of the ways that the church has been able to use a sort of medium to communicate the text of the Bible and its interpretations. Throughout the years it has turned from using the medium of art to mediums like posters and smartphone applications to songs and anything involving the internet.

From the formation of the Catholic Church the present day there has been many changes and interpretations of the Bible. The way that the text is presented has not only changed but evolved to this day. We see applications of smartphones that have daily devotionals to posters and memes that have a section of the text. As much as we’d like to say that the Church may see technology as something that they would not like to use or think of as a good thing, many churches has given in and used it as a positive and used today’s media to create a sense of community and help audiences and congregations further understand and be a part of the Catholic community.