A Missiology for Communicators in the Internet

Missiology: The Study of Mission
In theological studies and in preparation for the synthesis year, all of us were tested on four main fields of theology: Systematic theology, Sacramental theology, Scriptures and Moral theology. Systematics, Sacraments, and Moral theology was more manageable when it comes to review than Scriptures. Scriptures involved so much material in relation to every book of the Bible - from Old Testament to New Testament.

During the synthesis year, missiology was not part of those four fields of theology. It seems to be on a field of its own. The professor of that subject was a diocesan priest who gave not only theories but also practical applications to them. For him, missiology is not a book to be studied but something to go through in our being Catholic - it is a process, an experience, and about life itself.

An Electronically-Mediated Experience
Being on the Internet is truly a unique experience. You experience many things that are unique to the medium. If we were to describe it using the mediums we have always used for a long time, the Internet is like a hybrid - something of a magazine, a television, a mailed letter, a radio, a CD player, a typewriter, a directory, and a catalogue in a library - all rolled into one system. And what makes it special and even more than the sum of all these things mentioned is its interactive feature.

Communication in the Internet is electronically-mediated. There are no interpersonal encounters. What transpires in the communication process is an exchange of messages printed on the computer monitor plus the facial expression of the other person if a web camera is used. The great advantage of this type of communication is that it can involve communication not only between two persons but can include as many as those who can be accommodated online. The senses that operate in this type of communication are sight and hearing - with the former used more than the latter.

The Webpage: Bearer of the Gospel Message
Those who create websites with Catholic content and material are of many kinds: they fall within the wide range of those that are purely commercial to that of those being purely spiritual. But whether the website is commercial or not, Catholic content and material is still brought to the attention of the Internet public in a way that educates, informs, inspires, services, and promotes a value system that can influence many to take into account and consider the Catholic outlook, philosophy and way of life. For those who are already committed to the faith the Church teaches, the webpage as bearer of the Gospel message, can serve to reinforce what they already know and to strengthen their bonding to the Church through Catholics they have encountered online from different parts of the world.

Webauthorship: A Special Mission
The Internet is basically a medium where information is stored and shared by an expanding network of connected computers from all over the world. For the Catholic mission, teaching and informing is an essential part of the evangelization process. Someone who has learned the skill of constructing webpages and building them into a website can contribute greatly to the Catholic mission by making his webpages also teach and inform the Internet public. Also, if he can provide content and material that can serve us inputs for prayer, reflection and meditation, he can help support the Christian formation of the visitor to the webpage. He can also assist the visitor and guide him towards the direction of Catholic thinking and acceptance of our value-system.

We speak of webpages and websites but in reality there are many forms of media in the Internet. If a committed Catholic who wishes to support the propagation of the Catholic faith in the Internet studies all of these present forms and continues to update himself of new forms that are cropping up regularly, then everything that he constructs using Catholic content and material can be placed under the scope of Catholic webauthorship - an authoring of Catholic content and material in the Internet and the world wide web.

Catholic Internet Missiology: An Ongoing Process
Never before has the Church discovered a new areopagus, a new forum, for proclaiming the Gospel as unique and as special as the Internet. What used to be a journey outwards to different cultures of people of various tongues, customs and traditions using the Spanish and Portuguese galleons of the 1500s and 1600s, has now become a journey into the deep of an electronically-mediated world which unlike the former which is geographically limiting, is now a journey to a continuously expanding space like the physical universe we find ourselves.

Can the Catholic church keep up in its mission to proclaim the Gospel in this expanding universe of cyberspace? As the Holy Father John Paul II says in his 36th World Communications Day Message, the Church can take the challenge of both danger and promise in making the face of Christ seen and the voice of Christ heard on the Internet. It seems apropos to say that as long as "there are two or three gathered" online to proclaim the Gospel and to teach the Catholic value-system and ethical principles to the world through this Internet medium, then the Church can not only double her missionary power and capacity but can even multiply, through the help of the Holy Spirit, the missionary thrust, fervor and zeal to a level she can tap for the preservation and propagation of the Christian faith to the future and succeeding generations.

Dennis-Emmanuel Cabrera
November 26, 2004

A Primer on Terms in Theology
Theology - comes from the Greek words, "theos", meaning God, and "logos", meaning study; from this, we can derive the meaning of theology as a 'study of God'
Systematic theology - a field in theology that includes fundamental theology (basic theology), Christology (the study of the person of Christ), Ecclesiology (the study of the nature and mission of the Church), and the Theology of Grace (the study of anthropology in the light of the Catholic faith)
Moral theology - a field of theology that studies the ethical principles of the faith plus the contemporary moral issues facing the modern world
Sacramental theology - a field of theology that studies the sacraments of initiation, the sacraments of healing and reconciliation, and the sacraments of service and commitment
Scriptures - a field of theology involved in the study of the Biblical texts and passages from the scientific method called exegesis
Missiology - comes from the Greek words, "missio", meaning mission, and "logos", meaning study; from this, we can derive the meaning of missiology as a 'study of mission'