How can Catholic teachers, ministers and religious use the internet to connect with young people?

The Georgia Bulletin has some answers:

Today’s college students are always plugged into technology, don’t carry the do-not-trust-anyone-over-30 hang-up and are not afraid to share details of their lives. But the idea of going out on a romantic date causes panic.

So, how’s a Catholic campus minister supposed to engage them with the challenges of Jesus?

Being where they are, advise speakers at a national campus ministry convention.

Students like technology. Start a Facebook page.

Students like to talk. Ask probing questions.

Students are immersed in pop culture. Find the Gospel in today’s media.

Meeting Jan. 6-9 in Atlanta, close to 300 lay ministers, sisters and priests focused on how to take Jesus’ message to students who grew up with the Internet and have a worldview shaped by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

Technology and college life today are tied together. And campus ministers have to utilize the tool.

Holy Cross Father Peter Walsh said a Web presence is almost mandatory, whether a Web page or being on the popular social networking group Facebook.

“It is kind of like having the church in the public square. Their faith is represented on the large public square,” said Father Walsh. “Students are online. You should be there.”

Walsh and his colleague Kathleen Byrnes, a campus minister, work at the St. Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

They have several hundred students linked on their Facebook group. It allows them to communicate with people and also be easily available to students.

However, Byrnes said the technology is a tool that should at times be shut off. If a student e-mails a serious question, the minister engages the student but invites them to a face-to-face conversation, she said.

Technology can also be a crutch to hide isolation in a dorm. The campus minster can challenge students to have a “technology fast.” Byrnes said students on retreats are told to leave behind cell phones. Being unhooked from technology is unusual for them and it allows them to focus, she said.

Read more at the Bulletin link.

How long till Benedict gets a Facebook page??? (Can he have a billion friends?)

Photo: Holy Cross Father Peter Walsh, assistant chaplain at St. Thomas More, the Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., co-facilitates a workshop entitled “Integrating Technology In Ministry” with fellow assistant chaplain Katie Byrnes. (Photo by Michael Alexander)