Continuing our regular interview series with new media experts and innovators, today we talk to Devin Rose.

Devin is a Catholic author, blogger, and lay apologist who has been using new media for some time in his pursuit of Christian unity.

He has a wonderful blog, an informative podcast, and he just released his first book, If Protestantism Is True. The book has received rave reviews and will soon be re-published by Catholic Answers.
 

1. Why, in particular, do you use new media–blogging, podcastings, YouTube videos, etc?

I use new media because it provides an easy means of sharing our Catholic Faith with thousands or even millions of people. If you have a computer and can write, you can start a blog, and you never know who might find it. If you have a microphone, you can record a podcast, tag it with some search terms, and it will be found by people online.

With the advent of YouTube, regular Joes like me can make videos and broadcast them to a worldwide audience. Even just twenty years ago, creating content for print, radio, and television was only accessible to the relative few who had enough wealth or connections, but with new media, the playing field has been leveled. Now, anyone with a desire to share their faith as part of the New Evangelization can do so.
 

2. Why should other Catholics engage new media tools?

Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, and this applies to Catholics in new media quite aptly. New media is where people are going today to get their information, to learn about their Faith, and to engage in open discussions. We as Catholics need to be there in droves!

But though our numbers are growing, we are still a small minority, especially proportional to the size of the worldwide Catholic population. You might think, “well, I see that another Catholic is already creating content in the area that I am interested in, so I don’t need to get involved.” Wrong! First, that other person’s work, tone, and style might not appeal to all people. Your gifts and unique presentation of the Faith might be just what someone needs. Second, the online world is vast, and more Catholics are needed to cover every part of it.
 

3. What’s one interesting story from your new media activity?

A few years ago I was contacted by an man from Albania, who had found my podcasts offering reasons for the Catholic Faith. He was a Protestant Christian but had grown interested in the Church and wanted to learn more. The problem was that his employment and entire social circle were intimately connected with his particular church. Becoming Catholic would mean for him a loss of income and friends.

Nonetheless, he began translating my podcasts into his native tongue and sharing his discoveries with others. We’ve had an ongoing email correspondence, and he is now certain that the Catholic Church is what she claims to be. Here is someone on the other side of the world–Blessed Mother Teresa’s homeland–with whom I never could have had contact without new media.
 

4. Why is it important for Catholics to dominate Google search results?

People find information through the search engines, and Google is currently the most popular one. If Catholics are not in the top search results for important phrases pertaining to the Faith, we lose out on a critically important means of evangelization.

Instead, other groups and people will draw those searchers to their own sites, and they will miss out on hearing the fullness of the truth of Christ. My friend and I both did searches for common Catholic phrases and were surprised to find that oftentimes the majority of the results were from non-Catholics seeking to discredit the Catholic Church.

This unfortunate situation became the impetus for the creation of my video podcasts. I created a video that targeted one of those key phrases and was amazed to discover that just days later, when I searched for that phrase, my video appeared in the top ten results! That demonstrates to me two things: first that there is a great need for more Catholics to create such content and second that there is an easy opportunity to dominate search results of key phrases.
 

5. How does new media fit into the ‘new apologetic’ and the ‘new evangelization’?

I am a Catholic apologist, and in decades past, a wide gulf existed between Catholics and Protestants. This was caused in large part by rampant misconceptions that each had for the other. New media is changing the apologetic landscape drastically, though, because now Protestants, many of whom had no Catholics friends and no easy way to learn the truth of the Catholic Church, are meeting Catholics and reading Catholic articles on the Internet.

They are usually surprised to find that Catholics are warm, friendly, and faithful people who love Christ like they do. They are even more surprised when they discover that the arguments for the Catholic Church are so strong. New media has bridged that chasm and now many are finding their way into the Catholic Church because of it. The “new evangelization” and new media go hand-in-hand. New media is the means by which the new evangelization is taking place.

Lay Catholics in particular are being encouraged to share their faith in new ways and in the particular places and fields they move about in. Even priests and religious are using the New Media to attract vocations and to communicate with their flocks. We can well imagine that if St. Paul lived in today’s world, he would be one of the bishops with a blog and a podcast.
 

6. How does new media allow you to defend and promote the Faith in innovative ways?

I received a comment on my blog by a man who told me he had created a video arguing against the Catholic Church’s doctrine of Apostolic Succession. I watched his video and created a video in response. He in turn created another video that responded to mine. This was all done in a charitable way, and the dialogue we had was helpful for many people to understand the arguments on both sides of the issue.

Another memorable situation occurred when a Protestant scholar in my town heard about my podcasts and a class I teach at my parish. It turns out he had given a talk at his church about Catholicism and had published it as a podcast on the web. I listened to it and created a podcast in response, and then that week he sat in on the class I was teaching. During the class, I invited him to come up to the front and have an informal debate with me, and he accepted! We had a friendly discussion and got to the root of some important differences between our beliefs. Later I published that discussion on my blog, and it became quite popular.

One more example is a ‘meme’. A meme is some idea or video or phrase that hits the Internet and “goes viral.” One such meme was based on a German-language movie of Hitler and his demise. Someone came up with the brilliant idea to create a spoof by giving the movie funny subtitles, putting words into Hitler’s mouth about some topic completely unrelated to the historical events.

I had the idea one night to make my own version where Hitler blows his top when he hears how popular Pope Benedict is, in spite of his efforts to stop him. I thought it was fairly humorous, but the response to it was overwhelming. Within a few weeks over thirty thousand people had watched the video and were delighted by it. Most didn’t even realize that while they were watching it and reading the subtitles, they were actually learning about the key events and successes of Pope Benedict’s pontificate.