In recent tech-geek news, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers) announced they are going to start allowing the purchase and registration of "top-level domains."
Top-level domains are the ".com" or ".org" etc. that you see at the end of every root web address. There are many others currently available (.net, .uk, .us, .gov, .me, .biz, etc.). But they've never allowed anyone to create their own and "own" it. Now they are.
What this means is that big organizations and companies can now purchase their own top-level domain for their web presence. So as early as next year you'll start seeing things like home.apple instead of apple.com. Things like that. Having the ".com" web address for a particular thing will no longer make you the cat's pajamas.
Additionally, instead of things like stmarys.org, you will likely start seeing stmarys.catholic, instead. Why? Well, because the Vatican has applied to get the ".catholic" top-level domain. Here are some of my thoughts:
- It's a good thing they are purchasing the .catholic domain for the Church. If they didn't, somebody else would. And that would be silly. Especially when that somebody else could be trying to hurt the Church by spreading misinformation.
- Top-level domains are going to become a supreme source of brand I.D. on the web. They will indicate that whoever has it is some kind of (if not "the") authority on that particular subject/thing.
- Some are concerned with the cost ($185k to apply and then, I believe, $25k per year). But this is not really all that much of an expense for a billion member organization (at all). Especially when we're talking about the primary way (the web) most people (and soon to be everyone) will be getting most of their information about anything. This is peanuts of what their budget should be for communication on the web. Besides, we've been asking the Church to be more of a pioneer when it comes to new communication technologies. Well here they are...jumping in the fray along side Google and Apple and every other major organization who knows what's what in the world to be a part of this big change online. Good for them.
- Apparently, use of the ".catholic" domain will be "limited to those with a formal canonical recognition: dioceses, parishes and other territorial church jurisdictions; religious orders and other canonically recognized communities; and Catholic institutions such as universities, schools and hospitals." This is good. And it will help the digital continent reflect the same recognized structure of the Church everywhere. Nothing new there.
- Some are concerned about the scandal created by allowing parishes or other groups in the Church to use the ".catholic" domain who are promoting and teaching things in contradiction with Church teaching. The trouble is that this scandal is already occuring. We already have parishes and groups and universities who are formally recognized as Catholic by the Catholic Church who are leading people astray. It is true, though, that this more formal online recognition has the potential to cause deeper scandal. But the scandal is not primarily with the .catholic part. It's with them having formal canonical recognition in the first place while freely contradicting Church teaching...a challenge the Church has dealt with since its beginning.
- On the other side of that concern, there are those who worry about the distribution of the ".catholic" domain becoming a kind of witch hunt that seeks to weed out those groups within the Church who are causing scandal. The people most worried about this kind of thing are those who have been getting away with contradicting Church teaching while still calling themselves Catholic for some time now. Of course, the use of the .catholic domain is just one of many reasons that it's getting harder for scandal-causing groups to fly under the radar. The digital age is making it so every bit of scandal is caught on video or recorded on an easily accessible website. And that will make fixing it more and more practical. This isn't at all to advocate for a "police state" Church. It's just to say that the faithful deserve the truth. And the Church is being blessed with more and more ways to make sure they are not being deprived of it and scandalized in the process. The ".catholic" domain may or may not end up being a tool that helps the process.
- The ".catholic" domain will not amount to a digital "imprimatur" of sorts or anything like that. But it would help if it communicated some level of ability to trust the website using it. That said, if the ".catholic" domain is to be trusted, then administering it to every group with "formal canonical recognition" in the Church will be a challenge the Church is going to have to grow into. And probably painfully...as they come to terms with the fact that a group having "formal canonical recognition" does not necessarily mean their website can be trusted.
In conclusion, this is an important "branding" and web ID strategy for the Church to embrace. That's it. And it will likely take a long time before we see your everyday parish using it. But once they are, it will at least reflect their formal canonical recognition in the Church. Which is helpful. And I think it will present a good reminder to everyone, both inside and outside of the Church, that we are one, united Church - not just a bunch of little independant churches. Which is a pretty cool thing to celebrate and promote.
Other than that, it's just a web address. It's not going to make a terrible website magically look or work any better at serving the mission of the Church (where the real work needs to be done). But it's fun to see things like this happening at the Vatican level.
What do y'all think?
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If you will permit His Grace a response (or a series of polite questions):
http://www.archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/roman-catholic-church-seeks-to-own.html
I agree Matt. If no other reason than as a defensive tactic, this is a necessity. But there are obvious advantages presented here.
The tech nerd in me has always wished for a more systematic naming of parish, diocese, and religious order etc. websites. There are a zillion st.mary’s churches, all of which want “stmary.com”, but since they can’t all have it they make their own variations and the whole field of church domain names gets pretty messy pretty fast.
Maybe this is also something the Vatican has planned. With the clean sweep of new domain names it’s now or never!
“catechism.catholic”
“bible.catholic”
“become.catholic”
The potential for clarity is too big to pass up!
But who gets to use anglo.catholic and reformed.catholic (if they are permitted)? Who arbitrates and by what authority?
They are free to purchase .anglocatholic or .reformedcatholic. I’m not sure what the problem is. It’s a web address. It’s good for branding and such. If done well, it will help you find the truth. But it will not determine the truth.
I wonder how this will be administered? I just can’t imagine the infrastructure to handle application and use of .catholic.
Genius, but the Church can already do this with its Vatican .va top-level domain.
Matthew, any ideas who receives those payments?
The very idea that an anonymous person would post themselves as “His Grace” through a blog-spot named “Archbishop Cranmer” is the very reason why this .catholic domain is so needed. Thank you Matthew Warner!
Who gets “.Jesus?”
“.Church?”
“.Christianity?”
“.Trinity?”
“.Sacraments?”
“.Saints?”
“.BlessedMother?”
“.Angels?”
“.Sacred Scripture?”
“.Credo?”
etc., etc.
OMG Kelli, the Cranmer blog is hilarious. Calm down and stop giving people the idea that Catholics congenitally lack a sense of humor!
I love that the Vatican is doing this! Being a tech geek it’s really exciting for me. I can’t wait to see my parish use it.
Mike, I suppose those domains would be up for grabs to the first applicant, but they would have to have a significant amount of money (and motivation) to pay for them.
I’m glad to see that the Church had recognized that it needs to be out there doing things like this, and that it is actually doing it. As a Catholic who spends a lot of time on the computer, I wholeheartedly support the Church buying the .catholic domain. Whoever had that idea should get a pay raise.
I think the point isn’t that the catholic church gets all the catholic domains. Having the domain doesn’t make you an authority any more than having a twitter handle “@CatholicChurch” makes you an authority on Catholicism. It is that the church defends herself where she can and that she has a domain and they use it. It surely helps that it is as simple and direct as “.catholic” ...
I wonder if ICANN has their system for judging who gets a contested name published somewhere.
Question: Will the right to use “catholic” be subject to periodic review?
Think about a church entity that is granted the “catholic” suffix, then in the future diverges from the faith.
I, so far, am for this. I grew up poorly catechized and went searching for orthodoxy in college. I landed on a very confusing mix that contained what I think were some sedevacantist websites, lots of contradictory information from different sources, and some stress trying to sort things out…while the problem of some canonically regularized organizations not being orthodox would still be an issue, I might have been able to look for the most orthodox websites that were .catholic!
I don’t think I’m the only young person getting (some of my) catechesis over the internet these days, either!
Caroline, Summa Theologica in English of great St. Thomas Aquinas (e.g. on www.newadvent.org/summa/), Doctor of The Church, is a great source for lay people to learn the Catholic Faith and make it robust. With one important addition: only if what is learned there is not subsequently modified or contradicted since then it is not what St. Thomas Aquinas taught with approval of The Catholic Church.
Yes, I was “poorly catechized” too, Caroline. Although I knew the catechism(s), and we all mea culpa’d daily (sometimes hourly) in my household, I never associated LOVE with God until I read the Jesuits—and that happened before I came online. One doesn’t need the internet in order to come to know and love God; we’re all minimally catechized until the Holy Spirit fleshes/flowers it out at the right times along the way. Please (whomever) stop blaming V II for failing to be an old covered wagon. V II has saved a LOT of faithful.
And yes (someone here mentioned it), I, too, am sick of landing on Trad sites when I Google something from my very own background. Gawd, how dreadful for inquirers or fallen-aways to land upon. Hopefully, sedes and other non-Catholics won’t be granted a dot-catholic—I hope each applicant is first vetted by (current! alive!) Church authority.
Doesn’t it make it easier for governments such as China to restrict access to Catholic sites?
As if the Roman Catholic Church is the only Catholic church.
I don’t think too many .edu Catholic universities will be changing to something like Georgetown.catholic or usf.catholic. But Steubenville and Ave Maria might.
@Gerald Spencer:
It, and those in communion with it, comprise the only Catholic church. When full communion is established with our Eastern brethren, they would qualify; till then, I would suspect they’d prfer a domain of .orthodox to .catholic anyway.
What exactly is your point? By definition, to be Catholic one has to accept and believe to be true all that the holy, catholic and apostolic Church teaches and believes to be true. Udderwise…you ain’t a Catholic church.
What alternative would you propose?
It would be nice to have .<diocese>.catholic
It would be good if it could be the ‘net equivalent of a ‘nihil obstat’ - it remains to be seen.
Indeed a good & apt move; every other seem to hurl at the Catholic Church!
Not to worry “Sticks and stones are only throw at “The Fruit bearing Tree” it wasn’t like Jesus was freely accepted either in His time, so what can be said of the Church - the Rock He built!
I am sure Gerald is referring to the branch theory of Anglicanism and/or the Old Catholics and PNCC.
Anglo-Catholics are high-church Protestants until they enter the Ordinariate. I’m sorry but it’s true. No different than with the sedevacantists on the right. As pretty as their service as, and as orthodox as their beliefs are, they aren’t Catholic until canonically so. Same with the PNCC. The Old Catholics need to get on board with Vatican I.
Or:
ourladyoftheangels.umb.catholic
(u=Usa country)
(m=Mobile province)
(b=Birmingham diocese)
or from small to large:
Ourladyoftheangels.bmu.catholic
The one true universal church!!!
Another example;
christcathedral.olu.catholic
(o=orange county diocese)
(l=los angeles province)
(u=usa)
And with templates that can make it easy for parishes to have decent websites we will conquer the next generation!!! This is very exciting…
Plug for said service: eCatholicWebsites > http://www.ecatholicwebsites.com/
The templates and the back end have gotten progressively better over the years, and I know here in Texas tons of churches, diocese, schools, and other groups have been using the service. The Co-Cathedral in downtown Houston (an especially nice template http://www.sacredhearthouston.org/) and St. Mary’s at Texas A&M University (http://www.aggiecatholic.org/)
Y’all should check it out.
Despite the dwindling supply of decent domain names, plenty of other TLDs have come out in recent years and not a single one has really caught on. There is no good reason to believe that this will be any different.
http://domainnamewire.com/2012/06/21/sorry-but-this-round-of-new-tlds-isnt-revolutionary/
@ Chris:
What about: ex.catholic or no_longer_a.catholic ?
@Manticore:
I still don’t see the issue. Why not just purchase “yourname.excatholic” or “yourname.nolongeracatholic”?
^
Only parishes, diocease, or canonically catholic organizations can have a .catholic domain. Lay people can’t, and neither can non-catholics. It will not be the same as receiving a .com domain.
Best plan since sliced bread!!!
Manticore: What’s wrong with an ex.catholic web site, especially if its message is ‘please come back’?
We have not seen such chaos in Christ’s Church since the Arian Heresy, the recycling of which has had an impact that is multiple times that of the original. What is needed is a Miracle, and every Miracle requires an act of Faith. (Fatima)
At this hour, it is already late.
All Religious Orders are not faithful to the Magisterium.
People will assume that anything with “.Catholic” will be accurate.
How is this going to be policed to avoid heresy and schism ?
It is important to own, but anyone using it must agree to something like the mandatum - (The mandatum is an acknowledgment by church authority that a Catholic professor of a theological discipline is teaching within the full communion of the Catholic Church. The object of the mandatum is the content of the professor’s teaching and requires him/her to refrain from putting forth as Catholic teaching anything contrary to the Church’s Magisterium.)
And at this time - a staff at the Vatican will need to police its use on a daily basis, and they need to be ready with quick responses, not months of investigation.
Personal opinions vs true teaching of the Church should not be permitted to avoid confusion.
I hope this is managed in a good, systematic way; something like www.usa.catholic/wv/huntington/stjoseph, rather than have thousands of parishes competing for www.stjoseph.catholic.
Sounds like a great idea. Is it only the english verision of “catholic,” or will this apply to other languages?
Thanks for posting! I got the point, from the marketing point of view. The church really could benefit from branding strategies. Ownership of .catholic is an option to become more findable on the internet. But let’s also consider that top level domains can be filtered/excluded systematically. Notice the same issue on the .xxx TLD. So on the other hand it’s a way to get isolated..
I believe we catholics should “show the face of Christ” instead of saying we are catholics. I think authentic testimonies will do conversion, rather than a fancy way of showing content.
I think the Roman Catholic Church is not the only catholic church. So registering the TLD catholic should be a matter of all catholic churches.
What about the Orthodox Catholic church, the Protestant Catholic Church.
The TLD Catholic Community is now “delineated from the broader Catholic Church and Internet users generally by its direct connection to the Holy See.”
A church like the Roman Catholic Church, who excludes half of mankind (i.e. the women) cannot claim to be the only church that is entitled to use the term catholic.
It is a very good thing to see the Vatican taking the internet seriously and using it as it should be used. I believe the potential for directing truth seeking people to an easily identified system is a tremendous boost for truth in this world. Good for the Vatican.
Marvin Fox
thanks for this
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Expensive pie-in-the-sky. Attempts to control the internet are doomed to failure.
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