Pope Francis launched his own profile on the “Click To Pray” app on Sunday, January 20, just ahead of his departure for World Youth Day celebrations in Panama. Vatican Media described Click To Pray as “a platform that invites men and women from around the world, to accompany the Pope in a mission of compassion for the world”.
That’s a neat idea, and a practical illustration of the way Francis and the Vatican under his leadership are engaging with the contemporary world. In his message to mark the World Day for Social Communications, Pope Francis wrote: “Ever since the internet first became available, the Church has always sought to promote its use in the service of the encounter between persons, and of solidarity among all.” He went on to explain that, despite its risks, the internet might allow us to overcome the problems of disconnection and loneliness:
“I would like to invite you once again to reflect on the foundation and importance of our being-in-relation and to rediscover, in the vast array of challenges of the current communications context, the desire of the human person who does not want to be left isolated and alone.”
Hence, perhaps, the new app, which is sponsored by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, the Apostleship of Prayer, and the Apostleship’s youth wing, the Eucharistic Youth Movement, with the collaboration of Vatican Media.
Available for iOS and Android devices, it is designed to aid people in daily prayer and to be a community builder. It offers the possibility to ask for prayers and to pray for others’ intentions, as well as a thrice-daily reminder to pray – morning, afternoon and night.
There are a few other bells and whistles within the app, like the “proposals” for prayer, which this month include – if you live outside Latin America – the following invitation: “Conduct a meeting of the pastoral leaders of the community, inviting young people to reflect together on their concrete participation in the life of the community.” A nice idea, to be sure, but it is dropped there as though it were the sort of thing one can easily arrange.
Another proposal is: “Throughout this month, try to be a proclaimer of the joy of the Gospel with those who need it most, in their own environments, family, friendship and work.” This section leaves one wanting for a few particular pointers.
The app takes a few seconds to open, running through a sequence that reminds you who its principal sponsors and partners are, showing you their logos and telling you how many people have prayed with the Pope this month, before opening to the front page.
It can be used in six languages: Italian, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and English. Throughout the app, the English is a little rough around the edges. It does not read as though it were “born in English” and has a decidedly continental flavour to it.
On the landing page and on each individual prayer page there is a tracker that tells the user how many people “has” prayed the prayer, for example, “2534 has prayed” the afternoon prayer on Monday, January 28, 2019, at 6.07pm Rome time. It is an ungrammatical unsightliness that should have been caught in the design phase and ought to be easily fixed.
Most of the user reviews at the Google Play Store are positive. The app has a 4.4/5 rating. One reviewer described it as “super cool!” though there do seem to have been a few bugs in earlier versions. Some reviewers complained of problems signing in and others of difficulty toggling between languages, but the major usage issues seem by now to have been resolved.
Basically, one gets the impression that the Click To Pray app is an excellent idea and a worthy experiment in engaging the faithful, especially the “digital natives” of the present and the coming generation. The execution so far seems to be somewhat hit-and-miss, but it takes time to work out all the kinks in a new thing.
Still, one gets the impression someone wanted this initiative to hit, and hit big. In the Google Play Store, prospective acquirers are told: “Click To Pray is the official app of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (Apostleship of Prayer) that revolutionize [sic] praying.”
That’s the sort of canned language one expects to find in any sales pitch or ad copy, and it would grate on this digital immigrant (not quite a Luddite or a dinosaur), even if it were not missing an auxiliary verb. It’s oversold, in other words, but that is part and parcel of the world in which we live. Another reviewer called Click To Pray “a wonderful way to stay in prayerful touch with others around the world”. That reviewer had the measure of the thing.
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