The Church, as Mother and Teacher of humanity, never ceases to announce the message of Salvation. Each generation brings new efforts to make the Gospel visible, to make it a lived reality, and to transmit values that permeate modern culture and thought. Today, Catholic.Net, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary and thanks to the support of Anáhuac University, already has a virtual base To be able to offer courses that anyone can access at any time from their computer or mobile device.
Digital evangelization is, without a doubt, the fruit of an entire ecclesial journey that has recognized how the internet can facilitate evangelization. Even Paul VI, in the Ecclesiam Suam, declared that «The Church must move toward dialogue with the world in which it lives. The Church becomes word; the Church becomes message; the Church becomes colloquy» (Paul VI, Ecclesiam Suam 34). A symposium that, over the years, has always been open to new communication methods. Paul VI perhaps did not envision “digital evangelization” as we have it today, but his prophetic vision spurred the initiative of Christians seeking to accompany the realities of time and place.
For John Paul II, the pilgrim Pope, Christian formation was essential in a changing world that was moving headlong toward relativism. We owe him the urgency of a “new evangelization” and a “recristianization of society”: «The most precious gift that the Church can offer today's disoriented and restless world is to form Christians who are firm in the essentials and humbly happy in their faith. Catechesis will teach them this and will benefit from it from the beginning.» (John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae 61). And the internet platforms of many ecclesial realities around the world have also contributed to this. It was in the year 2000 that Catholic.net emerged in response to the call that Saint John Paul II made for the new evangelization.
Benedict XVI offered the Church – and continues to offer – a doctrinal richness. He invited all Christians to a constant mission of evangelization: «The Church, as a mystery of communion, is entirely missionary, and each person, in their own state of life, is called to make an incisive contribution to Christian proclamation» (Benedict XVI, The Word of the Lord, 94). During Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate, a lot of material was produced on Catholic.Net, reaching 74,000 articles and averaging 3 million monthly visits from various parts of the world.
In our day, Pope Francis has been very insistent that our Church must always be “going out,” reaching out to the peripheries, to those realities where the Gospel is not present: «The Church going forth is a missionary-discipleship community that always takes the first step, is involved, steps out, gets its hands dirty, goes forth from its comfort zone, reaches out to its frontiers, and aims for its most fruitful frontiers» (Francis, Evangelii Gaudium 24). It was here that, under new leadership, Catholic.Net not only continued to offer online courses taught by a wide range of experts, but also embarked on the task of having a virtual platform to organize and offer its courses.
We invite everyone to to know this platform, where members of Regnum Christi have participated in both execution and production, and to leverage their content for personal, community, and evangelizing growth.
“Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself” (John Dewey)).
