From Scoble: Meet the techie “sister” behind Vatican’s Website:
Sister Judith Zoebelein, editorial director of the Holy See, runs the team that builds the Vatican’s Website. We have a fun talk at the recent LIFT conference, where we discuss the challenges of building a site for one of the world’s oldest organizations.
This is really quite a good interview. Sister Judith has some excellent perspectives on blending old/new… i.e., church/Internet, and more. Moment: in response to the question, “Will we go to church in Second Life?” she asks, “In the afterlife?” But she knows what it is, and offers a perspective on that and on online community in general. She offers a caution in that the church is sacramental, which you can’t have virtually.
I used to run a Linux news aggregation site back in the early part of the decade. One day an referer jumped out of the logs at us, from the Vatican. Yes, they use Linux… and she’s been running the site since 1995, so this is not a last-minute get-with-the-program approach… it’s forward-thinking. There are in fact 17 people working on the Vatican’s website, and Sister Judith says it’s “too few, believe me!”
I thought at first this would be more of a tech-based interview, but it’s much more of a discussion-opener about the intersection of the church and the Internet.
Bro,
This was awesome. I’m just in the middle of the transition back to the visible church after spending the last 2-1/2 years in iChurch. She really hit the nail on the head when she was talking about the Church being sacramental and how the internet is a great place to connect but unless those connections find a physical manifestation, the relationship never truly becomes real.
Thanks for the link.