I am a member of xt3.com a Catholic social networking site that is an outworth of this year's World Youth Day in Sydney.
Today, I got an email from XT3 which stated:
Cardinal George Pell sent you a new private message
Naturally, I was skeptical, but lo and behold, the good Cardinal (or his surrogate) really did send a message to all 30 000 members of this site.
The message leads, ultimately to this practical guide on being a Catholic witness in the world. (The document is in PDF and is 2.5MB long, FYI).
This is ingenius. If they could recruit say 3 million people-- not implausible-- they could really do some interesting thing. Imagine, for instance, that they recruit 1 million Americans. And the Vatican reminds them that Catholics are called to vote for the right to life.
A million votes in the balance could have an effect on the US Presidential Election.
I love it.
This has so many possibilities.
And it gets better.
I got another email from XT3 announcing that Pope Benedict will send a special message to all members on September 8th-- the Feast of the Birth of the Virgin Mary.
Getting a message from the pope-- way cool.
And yes, the Pope probably doesn't know anything about the Internet and it's probably some secretary doing all the work, but so what. It's still pretty neat.
So if you want your pope message, register on XT3.com and invite all your Catholic friends to do so.
Your Holiness, if you keep talking to people directly like that, you will get more people to join.
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