high-tech habits

At the LIFT conference concluded a few days ago, one of the stars of the show was a nun -- Sr. Judith Zoebelein, editorial director of the Internet Office of the Holy See. In short, Sr. Judith -- a fiftysomething American nun -- is the Vatican's web mistress.

Despite wearing a nun's habit, Sr. Judith breaks the stereotype of nuns being uncool and hopelessly outdated, if not ignorant, when it comes to technology. Not only that -- her job situates her at the helm of a typically male-dominated field in a very patriarchal system. No wonder the other LIFT participants such as Robert Scoble, the prolific blogger formerly with Microsoft, just had to sit down with her for a side interview.

But the interesting thing about Sr. Judith is her take on the Internet. She believes in using the Net to build communities -- not just online communities, but real ones. In an interview with BusinessWeek last year, she was said to be working on a site that would bring Catholics together, a sort of "MySpace.com for Catholics," as the article said.

This is similar to one of the aims of journalism. When done well, journalism engages its audience and makes them citizens in the true sense of the word. Combine this with the power, speed, and convenience of the Internet, and you have a truly global online community.

As I've said before, when you strip the Internet of all its bells and whistles, what you'll get is a tool for communication and information dissemination. It lends itself to journalistic ends because of this. Sr. Judith, in the BusinessWeek interview, talks about connecting and using the same technology, albeit for a different purpose:

"For (Sr. Judith), the Net is the ultimate way to reach millions of people and to connect them with their deity. 'It's about something much bigger than myself, and it's also very Franciscan: You can touch it, you can change it, and you can touch people with it,' she says."

Does Sr. Judith have a blog, you ask? Unfortunately, the answer is no.