Schedule

Session 1. Sunday afternoon: Understanding Culture and Church


1. Participatory Culture and the Digital Context: A New Lens for Examining the Role of the Laity in the Church
Daniella Zsupan-Jerome, Ph.D.


This paper responds to the theme of the role of the laity in exploring the relationship between the Church and culture, and focuses especially on digital culture. One challenge that emerges from this dialogue is examining the lay voice in communicating the faith. In our digital culture of many voices, a new aspect of lay ecclesial participation becomes the authentic communication of faith on a broader, public yet less formal scale. In this regard, the emerging task of the Church is one of empowering the voice of faith through more comprehensive formation for the laity for communicating in our digital culture. The paper will propose how authentic (full, conscious and active) liturgical participation is a source and summit experience not only for worship and ecclesial identity, but also as a generative context for authentic communication of the faith in and through digital culture.

2. "TFW Our ❤ Were 🔥🔥: Catholicism in the age of @Pontifex"
Jonathan Lace, Seton Hall Preparatory School/ iOS app developer


This paper will explore the ways in which communication has been changed by digital technology in three areas: The priority of creative media, social awareness, and the meaning of community participation. I will argue that in each of these areas, the legitimacy of basic assumptions in particular paradigms of "mission" are challenged and foundational theological anthropological concepts are affirmed. In turn, the Church is invited to judiciously incorporate emerging "open-source" social patterns into its various administrative organs, from the Papacy to the local parish, that model both accountability and transparency, and which can also prophetically expose certain", ecclesial structures which can hamper efforts at evangelization. Full Paper

Session 2. Monday morning: Models of Church


1. The "Gifted We" - an ambivalent Metaphor of Communion in a Digital Age and Inter-Religious Globe
Matthias Scharer, University of Innsbruck, Austria


In my presentation, I try to summarize the developing insight in the metaphor of "Gifted We" in the ambivalence aspects. Especially I will respect the problematic dimensions of the metaphor. I will ask what the Gifted We could mean in a Digital Age and an Inter-Religious Globe. What could be the prophetic provocation of the "Gifted We" in present times? Full paper

2. The Church as a Friend: A Touchstone for Theological Reflection on Ecclesia Communication in a Digital Age
Rev. Richmond Dzekoe, St Thomas University Miami


One challenge that confronts the church today is how to make the best use of the tools of social communication, which flood our world today due to the revolution in the development of communication tools, especially social media. Literature on Communication Theology indicates a "need to establish some theological touchstones for the churches to use in judging the use of [these] means of communication" in a way that enhances authentic encounter between God, humanity and all created things (Soukup 1983). The current research rests on the assumption that the question of how best the church can make use of these marvelous things (inter-mirifica) cannot be answered without first answering the question of what the church is invited to be in this digital culture. Exploring the church as a friend is thus one step towards exploring the mystery of what God is calling the church to be in the world today. The research is guided by one main question. How might an ecclesiology of friendship provide a touchstone for theological reflection on the church's call to enhance authentic encounter among the people of God? Full paper

4. The Church as Body of Christ in the 21st Century: Complex Interactions of Systems
Eileen M. Daily, JD, PhD


In recent decades, focus on the Body of Christ as a metaphor or model of Church has emphasized the Mystical aspect of the Body of Christ. Because Jesus Christ was True God and True Man though, it may be time to refocus attention on the corporeal existence of Christ and examine how the metaphor might be apt today. The presentation will offer a Church-related analogue system for each of the bodily systems identified above.

Session 3: Monday afternoon: Senses of the Faithful


1. Virtual Sacramental Life?
Grazyna Kolondra


Can the digital transformation of society put the future of recorded sacramental nature of the Church in jeopardy? The purpose of the sacraments such as Baptism and the Eucharist is to make people holy and strengthen their faith. The sacraments bestow grace which disposes the faithful to cooperate with this grace toward the perfection and participate in the mission of the Church. Every initiative undertaken to protect human dignity, peaceful coexistence among people, and moral values in various aspects of social life such as justice to the poor and least privileged is encouraged by the Church. Because the Holy See transcends the restraint of geographic location and it is not connected with any particular nation or form of government, the Holy See carries out a spiritual mission for the universal Church and it speaks with a deep, universal concern for all nations and peoples from all regions of the world. In a Wireless World the entire Mystical Body of Christ, both head and members, undertake the virtual work of the sacraments, but does participation in a virtual Eucharistic Mass is valid?

2. Digital Culture: Shaping New Orthodox Reality
Rev. Dr. Nicolas Kazarian, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America


This paper will examine Orthodoxy's relationship with digital communication, linking theory to practice. Firstly, it will address the relationship between Orthodoxy and communication from a theological perspective. I will then explore the impact of digital culture on pastoral work. Finally, I will analyse some of the undesirable effects on the modern reconfigurations of belief of the way religions use digital communication as an instrument.

3. Ecclesiology in a Digital Age: An Orthodox Approach
Tamar Grdzelidze , Ambassador of Georgia to the Holy See


How can the church today benefit from the Digital Age? And, what does it mean for the church today that Pope Francis went on Instagram or, the fact that he has been following Pope Benedict's initiative to go on Twitter? How does our contemporary Digital Age help the church to be authentic to its nature and fulfil its destiny? The second place I would like to share some of the findings about A Digital Age in the Catholic Church.

Session 4. Tuesday morning: Mystical Bodies


1. Disembodied Communities, Embodied Spirituality: Spiritual Sensibilities and Church in the Digital Culture
Rev. Joseph Scaria Palakeel, executive director of the Syro-Malabar Church Internet Mission in Kerala, India


This paper is a study of the articulation of the Christian spiritual sensibilities through the various media ages, beginning with the oral, literate, audiovisual and digital culture. Today we have disembodied (virtual) communities seeking embodied spirituality. Spirituality is viewed as a personal-communitarian-ecological enterprise closely linking interiority and consciousness with embodied existence and multi-mediated experience of man. We find a fusion of the sacred and secular, private and public, global and local. In such a context, several symbols, practices and beliefs of Christianity and Christian spirituality as well as the ecclesiological self-understanding of the Church need to be recast to make them understandable and relevant to the multimedia culture of virtual existence.



2. A Church of Martyrs and Mystics: Evaluating the priority of ecclesial "witness" in the context of digital culture's conception of "time"
Nadia Delicata, University of Malta


This dual task of "internal becoming" and "external communication" implies the need for a more transparent and meaningful mediation in the emerging digital context. The shifting culture assumes the need for the church herself to be transformed as a renewed medium that speaks persuasively and authoritatively to the world. A new culture calls for "heralding", "serving", "praying", "teaching" even "engaging in dialogue" in a new way. Recent Magisterial teachings seem to imply that this (re)newed way is of "witness"-in particular, in Francis' papacy, the "witness of divine mercy" not only ad extra, but also ad intra.
So the question begs to be asked: As our personal and cultural relationship with time becomes increasingly complex, as time itself is undergoing a radical metamorphosis, what can we expect of the communicability of our time-rich, time-bound, time-transcending Christian notions of "witness", "salvation history," eternity? How do we become a "witnessing church" that is compelling, persuasive and "authoritative" in a digital culture of fragmented time and narrative? Full paper

3. A Sacred Look: Becoming Cultural Mystics
Sr. Nancy Usselmann, FSP


Beginning with a theological aesthetics and the ability to see beyond the material to the supernatural realm, I offer a vision for the Church as a means of insight into a theology of popular culture-one that is anthropological-incarnational-sacramental. I introduce the concept of cultural mysticism that can be a lens through which the Church engages the popular media culture and becomes a leavening presence leading to transformation. Full paper



Session 5: Tuesday afternoon: Digital church practices


1. Facebook as Lenten Discipline: An Orthodox Case Study
Anton C. Vrame, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America


Have new ascetic disciplines been created, such as a "technology fast"? At a recent lecture, Nancy Ammerman suggested that the digital environment augments parish involvement. As a case study, this presentation is based on this unscientifically selected group of responses, but provides adequate data for discussion as well as guidelines for a more systematic examination in future research. The paper will present the findings, explain the related practices of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church and discuss them in light of the work on spiritual practices, the changing Church in America, and Orthodox Christianity in particular, and the influences that social media is having on communities and individuals. Full paper

2. Virtues Gone Virtual: Revisiting The Virtues in A Digital World
Jeffrey J. Maciejewski, Ph.D. Creighton University


As social media such as Twitter and Facebook continue to expand, and as digital devices become ever more present in our lives, we're faced with two compelling questions: How do we reconcile our lives as Christians with our digital lives? Given that we cannot (indeed should not) separate the two, how can we as Christians navigate an increasingly digital world? This paper looks to the virtues to discover how it is they may inform not only how we talk and teach about digital living, but how we practice it.Full paper

3. Persons or Procedures: Catholic Higher Education and the Digital Age
James F. Caccamo, Saint Joseph's University


Ecclesiology is a rich and critical topic within Catholic theology, and one that, over the twentieth century, was a location for a great deal of debate. Yet, amidst all of the conversation on the nature of the church, scholars and ministers have often overlooked a critical part of the Church: its institutions of higher learning....Higher education is not only a location for spiritual development. It is also a nexus for digital technology use.
This paper will explore the intersection of ICTs and the Catholic university and offer a framework for evaluating technologies for adoption. The paper will begin by offering an overview of technology trends in the college and university setting. Then, grounded in the principle of integral human development (from Populorum Progressio to Laudato Si'), the paper will offer a four-point measure for implementation of ICT systems: enhancement of access to educational opportunities; persistence of embodied, corporate interaction; upholding the dignity of work and of workers (be they students, faculty, administrators, and staff), and availability of structures to support teaching and learning. The paper will close by suggesting concrete policies regarding several emerging technologies.