Technology and social media

A new archdiocesan policy geared toward parish-based youth ministers seeks to provide a safe and healthy environment that will allow teens to grow in their faith.

The policy, which debuted this month, took about three years to craft, through the collaboration of the archdiocesan Catholic Youth Apostolate's Office of Youth Ministry and the archdiocesan Office for Child and Youth Protection. The policy complements the requirement that all adults who work with minors in the archdiocese undergo training in the Safe Environment Program.

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican launched a new "Pope App" on the eve of the release of the pope's World Communications Day message, which is dedicated to social networks as important spaces for evangelization.

The new app provides live streaming of papal events and video feeds from the Vatican's six webcams. It sends out alerts and links to top stories coming out of the Vatican's many news outlets, and carries words and images of Pope Benedict XVI.

NEW YORK -- Often, prayer intentions are offered with hands folded, but a new service allows hands and fingers to move freely -- provided a cellphone is handy.

The New York-based Holy Name Province of the Franciscans has started a service it calls "Text a Prayer Intention to a Franciscan Friar."

The service debuted in January with the new year.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI launched his very own Twitter account, sending a short inaugural message to his more than 1 million followers.

"Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart," it said.

His tweet — 139 characters — went viral as the number of followers of @Pontifex and its seven other extensions grew by more than 5,000 new people an hour, a Vatican official said. Tens of thousands of followers retweeted the messages in the short minutes after they were posted.

There's a new look in education at St. Francis Borgia Regional High School in Washington.

Borgia is one of only a few high schools -- and the only archdiocesan high school in the St. Louis Archdiocese -- that has gone to an all-iPad campus, according to Robert Oliveri, archdiocesan associate superintendent of second school administration.

All iPads. Almost no textbooks. And ultimately no paper.

Meet the future

WASHINGTON -- Television viewership is down. That's almost a man-bites-dog story.

But why is it down? There's not enough evidence yet to state why exactly, and the pattern of lower viewership is not long enough to declare it a trend.

By one token, TV viewing couldn't keep going up ever higher. The number of hours per day that the tube is on in American homes is astonishing. The Nielsen ratings service estimates that Americans watch about 147 hours of cable, satellite and broadcast television a month.