Tag: VATICAN

Google's Art Project may allow you to visit London's National Gallery and Florence's Uffizi Gallery, but if you want to gaze at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel from your living room, you'll have to head to the Vatican's website. There, you'll be able to spend your whole afternoon staring at Michelangelo's masterpiece, rendered in a beautiful, high-resolution panorama. Your virtual visit will ...

An iPhone app designed to walk Catholics through the sacrament of confession has drawn criticism from no less an authority than the Vatican. In a statement issued yesterday, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi dismissed any notion that Catholics might be able to use 'Confession: A Roman Catholic app' to completely replace real confession. "One cannot speak in any way of confessing via iPhone," ...

Make up your mind, Pope Benedict XVI. First, you roll out your own YouTube channel and Pope2you online initiative, and call upon your priestly underlings to colonize the blogosphere. Then, you turn around and declare that the Internet's poisoning our feeble, sin-prone minds. And now, you've taken the wind out of our Web-surfing sails, once again. On Saturday, during a Vatican conference on ...

The Catholic Church has lately dived into the digital revolution with an uninhibited enthusiasm, exploring new ways to reach parishioners and potential converts alike. This may be attributable to Pope Benedict XVI, whose digital-ecumenical efforts have included championing the Internet as a way for Catholics to share their faith, establishing the Vatican's YouTube channel and even asking followers ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... Call it BlackBerry Friday. Beginning today, all AT&T BlackBerrys with a two-year contract will be 50-percent off after a mail-in-rebate. [From: Techland] According to a MySpace page where celebrities reveal what's on their iPods, the Pope likes to get down with some Tupac, specifically the track "Changes." Can we now expect a ...

Christians tend to gaze skyward for guidance, so it's no surprise that their leaders have chosen the sun as their power source of the future. According to Fox News, the Vatican is planning to spend $660 million on a new 740-acre solar plant near the village of Santa Maria de Galeria. The plant, which would be largest of its kind in all of Europe, is expected to be ready by 2014. The Guardian ...

Good ol' Ratzinger is doing his best to make sure that the Catholic Church doesn't get left in the technological dust. After embracing YouTube, the Pope has issued a statement giving his blessing (however cautiously) to Facebook, MySpace, and social networking sites in general. Pope Benedict issued a statement on Friday, for the World Day of Communications, welcoming the "gift" of technology and ...

Eager to prove that they're not a bunch of technophobes (we didn't forget that whole cell phones will steal your soul thing), Vatican leaders are planning to launch the Holy See's own YouTube channel. Official details will be revealed during a press conference Friday, but it's pretty easy to figure out what to expect. The Vatican Television Center and Vatican Radio are working with Google to ...

Let's not beat around the bush here, the Catholic Church has always been a pretty big fan of blaming the downfall of man on popular culture and entertainment. And like the sound of AC/DC, somethings never change. The Pope is finding himself a little conflicted over cell phones. The same Vatican that started showering young churchgoers with text messages is now faulting mobile phones (and of ...