www.theologyofinternet.com: Concept Paper

1. What

Theologyofinternet.com is a collaborative e-Journal intended to develop, articulate and advance a Theology of Internet for the church.

2. Why

Pope John Paul II championed “Theology of Body”, which was the need of the time. This initiative identifies that the “Theology of Internet” is the need of the present and the future. Pope Benedict XVI identified social networks as the new ‘agora’ and therefore new spaces for evangelization in his 2013 Message for the 47th World Communications Day. He wrote:

“It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent”.

Whenever we discovered a continent in the past, the church always sent its missionaries. The role of those missionaries was to risk formidable challenges to spread the Good News of Jesus, with great courage and faith. In the same way, missionaries are needed to venture into this newly discovered ‘continent’ of the digital environment and proclaim the Good News.

Success and sustainability of this new missionary movement will depend upon the strength of the theological foundations on which this movement is built. The collaborative blog - theologyofinternet.com – is intended to provide a platform to articulate and develop this new theology of Internet, which will be an important part of the New Evangelization efforts of the church.

3. How

The collaborative  e-Journal -  theologyofinternet.com - will showcase peer-reviewed articles on digital technologies, Internet, social networking, etc and its relevance to the Church and evangelization.

·      Patrons – Cardinals of the Church

Cardinal Baselios Mar Cleemis, Major Archbishop of Syro-Malankara Church (confirmed)

Cardinal George Pell, Archdiocese of Sydney (proposed).

Cardinal George Alanchery, Major Archbishop of Syro-Malabar Church (proposed).

·      Chief Advisor –

Bishop Emeritus Gratian Mundadan CMI (confirmed).

·      Advisors – Bishops of the Church, other eminent personalities

Bishop Christopher Prowse, Diocese of Sale, AUS (proposed).

Bishop Bosco Puthur, Curia Bishop, Syro-Malabar Church (confirmed).

Fr Dr Thomas Aykkara CMI, Rector, CMI Major Seminary, Bangalore (confirmed).

Fr Tony Percy, Rector, Good Shepherd Seminary, Sydney (proposed).

Fr Dr Antony Kariyil, Director, Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology, Kochi (confirmed).

·      Chief Editor – Fr Dr Jaison Mulerikkal CMI

·      Editors – Scholars in the field.

  Fr Dr Kurian Kachapilly CMI, Asso. Director, Research Center, Christ University, Bangalore (confirmed).

  Fr Dr Jose Kuriedath CMI, Sociology Expert, CMI General Councillor (confirmed).

·      Reviewers – Experts in the field

 Fr Dr John Armstrong, Parish Priest, South Tuggeranong, ACT, Australia (confirmed).

 Fr Benny Nalkara, Lecturer, Dept of Theology, DVK, Bangalore (confirmed).

Fr Roy Palatty, PhD student, Catholic University, Louvain (confirmed).

Fr Dr Nandikkara Jose CMI, Dept of Philosophy, DVK, Bangalore (confirmed).

 Fr Rubin Thottupuram, Asst. Professor, Amal Jyothi Engineering College, Kerala (confirmed).

Fr Richard M Healey, Asso. Pastor, Camden, NSW, AUS (confirmed).

·      Sub Editors – Those who ensure adherence to e-Journal's bibliographic and textual style. Also proof readers.

  MGL Sisters, Australia (proposed).

  Ms Sneha Antony, Brisbane, AUS (confirmed).
Ms Beth Doherty, ACT, Australia (confirmed).
Fr James Thayil, Rajkot, India (confirmed).

·      Contributors – Those who publish articles.

·      Profile Manager – Brother Jeff Shawn CMI, Dharmaram College, Bangalore (confirmed).

·      Tech Team –

  Mr Jisso Jose, Managing Director & Co-Founder at Totient Business Solutions, Bangalore (confirmed).

 Mr Jobin Jose, Technical Staff, Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology, Kochi (confirmed).

·      Technology Support - Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology, Kochi (www.rajagiritech.ac.in).

e-Journal will allow contributors/authors to submit articles and users to access them and search by keywords or authors. It will provide permalinks to each article to uniquely refer it and access it for reference purposes.

Theologyofinternet.com will function under the auspice of its patrons. The chief editor will appoint an editorial board by invitation, in consultation with the chief advisory. The chief editor or editors shall review articles or delegate them to reviewers. The articles are scrutinized for format and proofread by sub-editors. After review process, the article is published in the blog.

On the Sacrament of Reconciliation and Fr Constantine

Last Sunday, I had a pleasant surprise to receive a call from Fr Constantine. He was very relaxed and graceful as he is about to join the Anglo-Catholic diocese of Ballarat. He conveyed his kind regards to all at Corpus Christi. In chatting with him, he incidentally made a comment that he went to Ballarat Cathedral for reconciliation the previous week before he joined the Anglican diocese and met an Indian priest, who was a CMI. The first part of that comment really made me happy, to see how he valued the merits of reconciliation – the sacrament that has got a very special relevance in our lives, especially during this Lenten season. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that the “individual and integral confession of grave sins followed by absolution remains the only ordinary means of reconciliation with God and with the Church” (Article 1497). Let us receive this sacrament (first or second rite) this season to merit the necessary grace to overcome our limitations and to reconcile with God and with the Church. Let us also place Fr Constantine in our prayers.

This is also a season of farewells – let us pray for His Beatitude Benedict XVI, the “Pontiff Emeritus” as he boldly paves way to new leadership in the Church. This may be the last time I will write in this column before I leave to India after Easter. Thank you so much Corpus Christi for all that you have been to me for the past two years. It’s a great parish and you all will continue to remain in my prayers (and in Facebook!).

Fr Jaison Mulerikkal CMI

* Published on 'Out of Silence column' on  Corpus Christi Parish Bulletin on 03-03-13

Theology of Internet

In his pastoral letter on 2013 World Communications Day, Pope Benedict XVI identifies social networks as the new “agora” and therefore new spaces for evangelization[1]. Reflecting on this letter, Bishop Anthony Fisher says that Pope discovers a new continent called “digital environment”. He commented on his Facebook page:

B16 just called social media "new spaces for evangelisation" and the digital environment "a ‘continent’ where the Church must be present and where believers must share with others the deepest source of their joy and hope, Jesus Christ.[2]"  

The Internet is the landscape of this new continent; the digital networks are its super highways and the digital content, its resources. Netizens are its citizens and its new “agoras” – the social networks – have turned in to super cities or nations. Facebook had 1.06 billion monthly active users (MAU) as of December 31, 2012[3] making it the 3^rd largest nation on earth after China and India, and holds more information about its netizens than any nation state about its citizens. This new world is definitely a continent.

 

Whenever we discovered a continent in the past, the Church always sent its missionaries. The mission of those missionaries was to venture into those unseen lands to risk formidable challenges to spread the good news of Jesus, with great courage and faith. This will be true to this newly “discovered” continent of “digital environment”. There is a need for missionaries and missionary expeditions into this new continent.

What should be the style of mission work in this new landscape? We can only look up to Jesus, as we always do, in search of an answer. So the question can be rephrased as “What would Jesus do in this new holy land? ” 

He would have gone to Capernaum. Capernaum was the “agora”, Jesus chose to be in. There was a special significance and intent in choosing Capernaum as the major field of Jesus’ public ministry where he spent at least 18 months – half of his public ministry after his expulsion from his hometown - Nazerath. It was almost premeditated, and of course according to the Divine plan. It was THE major connecting town between Galilee and Jerusalem - the Jericho Route which the Jews preferred to avoid traveling through Samaria. Every person who travels between Galilee and Jerusalem had to touch this town.  It had the largest synagogue in the region and a Roman military post. Jesus chose to heal the servant of the synagogue official and the daughter of the centurion at the military post. He chose to stay at one of the largest houses in that vibrant city – of that of Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus would have imagined that the connectivity of Capernaum will simply ensure the proliferation of His good news to reach up to the ends of the world - to Jerusalem, to Rome and beyond. The important thing is to be at the crossroads and to saw the good news, just like the sawer sawing the mustard seed leaving the Divine Providence to do the nurturing (Mt 13/31-32).

Jesus’ Capernaum strategy shall be the style of missionaries into this new networked continent of digital environment. The important thing is to be there at the crossroads, doing the right things, influencing its immediate and accessible surroundings. The rest will be taken care of by the Divine Providence, as happened throughout the history in commissioning new missions for every newly “discovered” continents and islands.

This could also be the new Areopagy of St Paul, where we need to re-interpret the “Unknown Gods” remain latent in the information explosion and to manifest the real goodness to the netizens of this continent. As always in the past, the cloud of Elijah – Mother Mary - shall guide our ways to manoeuvre carefully through these uncharted territories to produce a fertile land for the kingdom of God.  

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[1] Message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on 2013 World Communications Day (May 12) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/communications/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20130124_47th-world-communications-day_en.html

[2] Bishop Anthony Fisher (Parramatta Diocese, Sydney, Australia) on his Facebook wall on 25^th January.

[3] CNET, 2012, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57566550-93/facebook-by-the-numbers-1.06-billion-monthly-active-users/

PS: This is the first draft attempt, in producing a fully fledged "Theology of Internet" and related "Theology of Social Networking" and "Theology of Computing"

Jaison Mulerikkal CMI
February 2013

Lawrence B. Bean RIP

Lawrence B. Bean
(1929 - 2013)

Lawrence B. Bean (Larry) who gifted 238 acres of land to the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate to start the Carmel Spirituality Centre at Liberty, Tennessee, USA  died on January 21, 2013 at the age of 83 at DeKalb Community Hospital in Smithville. According to his wishes, his body was cremated. A memorial Mass was celebrated by the director of the Centre Fr. Thomas Kalam, CMI on Wednesday, January 30, at 2:00 p.m. at St. Frances Cabrini Church in Lebanon, TN. The CMI priests of the Diocese of Nashville along with others concelebrated.  His relatives and friends were present on the occasion.

 Larry had been ill for some time and was bedridden, essentially, for more than a year (since he broke his left hip on October 12, 2011). He remained at home; Bonnie, his wife, and co-founder of the Carmel Centre, was his caregiver. Up until the end, arrangements were made for nurses to visit him at home twice a week, and a physical therapist also came twice a week – not on the same days as the nurses. He was on oxygen fulltime. He was unable to stand up at all for the last week while at home; he was barely able to stand before that. He was taken to the hospital by an  an ambulance on Sunday night, January 13, when he became very ill at home. They admitted him, and he expired just over a week later. He had that bad MRSA pneumonia, dehydration and other things going on, which overwhelmed him. He put up a very good fight for a such a long time.

 He was born in Washington, DC on November 11, 1929. His parents were the late Edwin Temple Bean, Sr. and Mary (a’Becket) Bean. He was also preceded in death by a sister, Mary Osborne. Survivors include his wife, Bonnie (Axley) Bean of Liberty; son, Lawrence B. Bean, Jr. (“Skip”) and wife Jill of Penobscot, ME; daughters, Cynthia Lee Bailey of Rochester, NY, and Pamela (husband Christopher Panfil) of Angola, NY; step-son, Christopher Brunetto of Seminole, FL; step-daughter, Angeline Brunetto Sprague, M.D. and husband Timothy Sprague of Christiana, TN; brothers, Edwin Temple Bean, Jr. (wife Susan) of Buffalo, NY, and Neil Bean (wife Patricia) of Wilmington, NC. He had five grandchildren: Katherine Lee Bailey, Silas Jude Panfil, Becket Alexander Panfil, Kendall Faith Sprague and Ethan Ray Sprague.

 Mr. Bean grew up as a young man in East Aurora, NY. He was a veteran of the U. S. Naval ROTC program while at Clarkson College, NY, where he obtained a Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering. He was President of Conax Florida Corporation of St. Petersburg, FL, which produces life support systems for the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Mr. Bean was an avid reader and had worked as a Librarian in the Dowelltown and Liberty Library for 15 years. He was a member of St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Lebanon, TN.

 Larry who was born Episcopalian became a Catholic mainly inspired by his fevent Catholic wife Bonnie  and the good CMI priests they met, starting with Fr. Peter Akkapadickal, CMI.  It was Father Cletus Plackal, CMI, who received him to the Catholic Church.  The spiritual friendship between  Larry and Bonnie and the early CMI's grew stronger and deeper.  Larry and Bonnie were present at Kottayam for the beatification of Blessed Chavara.  Impressed by the life of the CMI's they met, Larry and Bonnie decided to donate all they had to our Congregation to start a spirituality centre, which would impart the type of spirituality they were privileged to experience from them.

 They lived in a cottage on the Carmel Centre property and took care of the running and maintenance of the property, which Bonnie continues to do. According to the agreement they had with the CMI Congregation, we have the obligation to celebrate a Gregorian Mass for Larry.

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February 1, 2013

Dear Rev. Fathers and My Dear Brothers,

Larry Bean, one of our great benefactors in the United States, passed away on January 21, 2013. Kindly find below a detailed obituary prepared by Fr. Thomas, Kalam, the director of our Centre at Liberty  in Tennesee. Larry was a close friend of our Congregation and he worked tirelessly with Bonnie to run our Centre at Liberty which they donated to us many years ago. I take this opportunity to acknowledge with gratitude the great committed services of Larry for our Congregation. Let us remember to keep Larry in our daily prayers. I have known Larry for many years and I will miss his beautiful smile and loving friendship. May he rest in peace.

Rev. Fr. Jose Panthaplamthottiyil CMI
CMI Prior General
Prior General's House,
Chavara Hills, Post Box No: 3105,
Kakkanad, Kochi,
Kerala 682 030, India

The Lucky Country

Ours is a lucky country. It is true in many ways, as we sing in our national anthem:

We've golden soil and wealth for toil,
Our home is girt by sea:
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare

This Australia Day weekend is a good time to thank God for all the blessings He has showered upon us during all these years “beneath our radiant Southern Cross”. It starts with the story of our first people, their tenacity and their generosity. We acknowledge them with great respect. It’s also the story of those who came to this land to build it to what it looks like today – a land of opportunities and well being. Let’s put a great tribute to their industrious efforts and to the sacrifice of those who tried to defend it and its values.

It is also a good time reflect on the deep rooted values on which our society is built on, and still stands firmly. Those are the Biblical values of love, kindness, forgiveness, equality and social justice. These values remind us of the need to have active reconciliation and genuine action to bridge the gaps that taint our society in many ways.

Let this day also reminds us to ensure a better place for our children, who can enjoy their freedom, to practise what they believe, and to prosper in families. Let us also ensure a humane welcoming attitude to those who come our shores with great hope and resolve to share our riches with the less privileged.

Happy Australia Day!

Fr Jaison Mulerikkal CMI

PS: Published in the Corpus Christi parish bulletin, ACT on Australia Day weekend 2013

Life of Jai - A Tale of Two Mugs

It's the tale of two mugs, from the life of an ordinary Indian boy who swam to distant lands he never knew!

The first one - the orange mug - reads "Delectable Caterer"! It was presented to me by the lovely ladies - Betty, one of them, if I remember correctly - at the kitchen of GNH (Greensborough Nursing Home), an old age home near Bundoora, VIC.

I treasure it as one of my precious gifts. On the last day of my work as a kitchen-hand there, they surprised me with this mug and a song - "He's a jolly good fellow..". I worked there as a kitchen-hand for an year and a half, because I couldn't find a job as a priest in Melbourne, but still had to pay my enormous international student fees at the university. I was doing three jobs at the same time sometime while I was doing my masters in IT at RMIT. One job at the nursing home as a kitchen-hand, one at a religious shop as a teller and third as a tutor at the university. That was a great adventure and a huge lesson in humility.  I cannot forget the support I received from CMI congregation, back in Kochi and from the kind Carmelites (O Carm) in Melbourne, who allowed me to stay with them. Also grateful to people like Thomas John, Ann De Costella (of Southern Cross Church Supplies- the mother Canberra's own legendary athlete Deeks!) and my good old friend Manoj Antony who in the very first place lured me to Melbourne, to start this adventure!

The second one - the white mug - reads "Australian National University". The day I submitted the hard-copy of my PhD thesis at the university's exams office, the lady asked me "pen or a mug?". It's a tradition to present the successful candidate with either of them and I didn't have to think twice to answer - "A mug, please" - because I knew the value of a mug.

It was an amazing run. The minor thesis I did at RMIT fetch me two technical papers and I was offered PhD scholarships at RMIT and ANU. It was hard for me to leave Melbourne, but was happy to do research  in supercomputing at one of the best 20 universities in the world. The best thing about my research - it was to help scientists to do their work much faster and easier, the best a Catholic priest can offer to the world. Its faith that fosters science and there's no Two, only One - Advaitha. I had my own struggles - after an year and a half into my PhD, I came to realize that the software I was working was not suitable for the purpose. I literally had to re-engineer it from scratch - nearly 20,000 lines of codes. Holy Code! Then the emergence of Cloud Computing and successfully convincing my supervisor to change the course of my research to accommodate this new technology into my work! And now, here I am, with the two mugs! The PhD is through with all the three examiners evaluating it positively, almost unconditionally. What a run. And in this tale of providence, there emerges God - "Life of Jai".