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Catholic Church Launches Evangelization Lab to Engage Digital Faith Seekers
Developing
In Short: The Catholic Church has launched Evangelization Lab to better engage digital faith seekers.
The Catholic Church has launched Evangelization Lab, a new initiative aimed at engaging digital faith seekers and fostering a deeper connection to Christ and the Church.
Katie Ruvalcaba, a Digital Missionary for Evangelization Lab, emphasized the importance of moving people from the digital space to a sacramental relationship with Christ.
Ruvalcaba told OSV News, “We’re very much doing whatever experiments we can run to try to get that message that Christ loves you; you can get off this internet space and into a space where you are in a sacramental loving relationship with Christ and his Church.”
The Evangelization Lab, founded by José Manuel de Urquidi in Dallas, aims to find effective ways to reach people through digital platforms and empower parishes, dioceses, and other Catholic organizations with the tools they discover.
Marlon De La Torre, Senior Director for the Department of Evangelization and Catechesis, shares a symbiotic consulting partnership with Urquidi on constructing digital spaces that can help evangelize at the hyperlocal level.
The initiative also aims to address the impact of AI on people's understanding of what it means to be human, a question the Church has been asking for a long time.
Taylor Black, interim president of the Catholic Digital Commons Foundation, noted, “AI has more people asking what it means to be human than I’ve ever encountered. The Church has been asking people to think about this question for a very long time.”
Ruvalcaba also emphasized the role of individual Catholics in digital evangelization, stating, “If you are a Catholic and you have an Instagram or Twitter (X) account, you are a digital missionary. The question is whether or not you’re doing it well.”
Background
Catholics are not required to believe in Eucharistic miracles, but the Church encourages the faithful to witness the power of God and affirm Jesus' presence in the Eucharist.
What's still developing
- “We need to get parishes away from the idea that they just need to maintain things, that their online presence is meant to be a digital bulletin, and rather view it as a mission field,” Ruvalcaba told OSV News.
- “Any type of a digital apparatus, a device, whatever the case may be, has to have a very formable but sound and clear human connection in order for that digital apparatus to work effectively,” De La Torre said.
- “You have to have that human element, and then associate it with a precise digital component that can assist in that process,” he told OSV News.
- How does the Catholic Church more effectively reach people through that digital space we live much of our life in, use it to build better human encounters and move them to Jesus Christ’s love, mercy and the sacramental life at the most interpersonal and local of levels?
- “Once that person journeys through that, then they can come back to that human element, that person, guide, evangelist, catechist to provide more clarity.” De La Torre amplifies the Evangelization Lab philosophy within his own diocese, focusing each digital platform to lead to the “sacrament of life.” They use it in helping prepare couples for the sacrament of matrimony.
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