The Vatican has lent its approval to an iPhone application – with the iBreviary bringing the book of daily prayers to Apple's handset.
The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications has given its seal of approval to the application, which was created by Italian priest Reverend Paolo Padrini with a little help from a web designer.
So what does iBreviary give (aside from a better chance of salvation)? Well it's available in Italian, English, Spanish, French and, of course, Latin with Portuguese and German likely be included in version 1.1.
On a wing and a prayer
A free trial period in Italian saw 10,000 downloads, but the application will now cost 74p with Padrini's proceeds going to charity.
Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications praised the new application, stating that the church "is learning to use the new technologies primarily as a tool or as a mean of evangelising."
The Vatican has long been an early adopter of technology – embracing the web, SMS and DVDs early in their life cycles.
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euonymous
January 5th
2. And this is charming also. The comment I wrote a moment ago referenced *** marriage, and the system then replaced the "offending" work with three asterisks. Cute, but difficult to hold an intelligent conversation that way.
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euonymous
January 5th
1. That's great. While it speaks well of the Vatican's ability to use technology, it does seem like they might better put some of that forward thinking into their policies on social issues. The Church can do so much good in the world but is being dismissed in many places as completely out of touch with society. I am speaking of issues around women priests, *** marriage, and birth control. While I have no dog in the fight on any of these issues (or on the issue of abortion for that matter), it does seem that people are being alienated by the Church's positions, unchanged in 2000 years.
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