Mar 26, 2006 / 22:00 pm
The Catholic Church in Scotland has launched a new text message service, which will include Church news and requests to pray, reported the Sunday Scotsman Newspaper.
The service will also seek to mobilize Catholics by advising them of radio and television talk shows on moral issues, urging them to call in. It also intends to prepare weekly audio and video services for download. It is the first church in the United Kingdom to offer such a service. It already offers a text message Bible verse service.
The Church will distribute 100,000 flyers over the next month to promote the new service, which will be free to subscribers and operated by volunteers in Glasgow. Costs of the service will be shouldered by the Church's communications budget.
For the first time, the text message service will offer both audio and video podcasts of the Scottish Church’s General Assembly in May. The podcasts will consist of edited highlights from the daily worship and debates. The debates will also be streamed to the latest mobile phones.
Scotland has about 700,000 Roman Catholics; about 230,000 attend church regularly. Church officials estimate that about 20,000 people will subscribe to the new service.