Virtual Mass Anyone?
 
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2007 15:20:07 -0500 (CDT)



4th June 2007

Virtual Mass Anyone?

Some years ago there was an amusing spoof press release (a joke) posted on
the Internet which announced a merger between The Roman Catholic Church
(RCC) and The Microsoft Corporation (MS). It was announced that senior
representatives of Microsoft would join the College of Cardinals and also
that representatives of the RCC would sit on the Microsoft Board of
directors.

See the original posting here:
http://www.h-net.org/~mac/msvat.html

What was even more amusing and highly instructive about this was that the
RCC and MS were outraged and both actually held press conferences and
released statements to formally deny the spoof and to criticise those who
had released it. 

There soon followed by another spoof which claimed that in response to this
move by MS and the RCC, IBM was now in urgent negotiations with the
Episcopal Church/Church of England. 
http://www.stdmn.com/ss/ibm_church.html

A whole slew of copycat spoofs followed which centred around the same ideas
of evangelism, conversion, modernisation, customer services, acquisition,
and mergers, the dominance of ideas or technologies and belief systems etc.
The common theme though was that a religion is somewhat like an operating
system.

What is funny about this is that there are quite a few parallels. Bugs and
design flaws... like celibacy or device driver isolation that always cause
problems. There are claims of plagiarism and prior invention, "we did it
before you did", "you've stolen that idea from us". Syncretism, the merging
of features of different systems. Upgrades like Windows XP service pack 2.
Windows Vista, the reformation and Vatican Two. Upgrades that don't really
work very well, like Windows Millennium, the Counter Reformation and Vatican
Two.

So what I want to know is this... But first a little preamble...

In medical research we have seen demonstrated what is referred to as
"Telemedicine" .. A remote medical doctor (a real human being) in a well
equipped city hospital can operate a computerised machine that is networked
by a secure and fast Internet link giving him or her real time information
(vital signs, NMR or X-ray scans etc.) and remote physical access to a
patient in another place, even on another continent, say for example on the
battle field but in a suitably equipped emergency operating theatre. The
doctor can perform real surgery on a real patient, cut with a scalpel,
suture and use other surgical tools as necessary. This is an example of what
is called "Telepresence", the doctor is said to be virtually present.

Now... I was thinking... Say for the purposes of the discussion that you
have a very religious community of Inuit people in the far north of Canada
cut off from contact with the outside world by a by snow storm, for a month.

Assume that they are all devout catholics and have a strongly built and
comfortable weatherproof church with a generator where they normally gather
for a catholic mass on weekly basis. Their airstrip is unusable due to the
fact that it is under 3 meters of drifting snow and it is not safe for
helicopters to fly during the storm. There are no roads and no ordained
priest can get to them, they don't have a regular priest because their
community is too small and the priest who normally flies in to say mass for
them is also snowed in by another storm 500 miles away. They have run out of
their stock of stored, consecrated communion wafers that the priest left
with them on his last visit.

In the sacristy of the Inuit church is a small emergency closet in which is
stored a battery powered android (robot), a lifelike and life size catholic
priest avatar complete with all the appropriate clerical vestments, facial
expressions, utterances and behaviours etc. The Inuit sacristan opens the
closet and switches on the android priest, whereupon it automatically
connects to a wireless router which is linked to a dish on the roof of the
church that has a secure Internet connection via satellite. The avatar walks
out of the storage closet into the church and then onto the altar where
it/he faces the congregation. At this point using a laptop the altar server
operates a software control with a mouse click and from that moment on
Telepresence is established and the avatar priest is then operated remotely
by a genuine ordained catholic priest from an altar in a suitably equipped
catholic church in Rome.

As the priest in Rome says mass his actions are duplicated remotely by the
avatar and by a two way audio link he leads the prayers, reads from
scripture, makes blessings and gives a sermon. There is a two way video
link, the Inuit can see the priest in Rome on a large plasma screen behind
the altar and the Inuit church has a webcam and the real priest is able to
view the congregation on a monitor set up in front of the altar in Rome. At
the appropriate point in the mass the priest consecrates the host (the
avatar follows or rather carries out his actions exactly) and he distributes
holy communion to the members of the local community attending the mass in
Rome. As he does so the remote Avatar again duplicates his actions and also
distributes the communion wafers to the Inuit community gathered in their
snowbound church.

So my question for catholics is this... 

Insofar as the RCC has declared that... catholics, who with solemnity and
reverence watch on TV the transmissions of the spiritual blessings delivered
by the Pope (to the faithful gathered in Rome in Saint Peter's Square at
Easter etc.) also receive those spiritual blessings and the benefit of the
special spiritual indulgences that are also sometimes declared to those
attending... in the same way as those who are physically present.  Can we
assume that the communion wafers in the Inuit Church are transubstantiated
and becomes the real presence?

I mean if the holy vibes of the Pope can come through the TV, why can't the
holy vibes of a priest come through the internet?

If so.. What happens if on reviewing the computer logs of the session after
the mass the priest in Rome notices that there was a brief disconnection of
the Internet link at the critical moment when he was uttering the words of
consecration? Due to the fact that the software was designed to default to a
stored version of the proceedings to overcome any brief network delays or
missing data packets the software covered over the brief loss of connection
with a stored recording and no one noticed the difference.

Would the priest in Rome then have to Email the Inuit community and say that
due to the brief disconnection, the communion they have just reverently
participated in and the wafers they have eaten were not actually really
consecrated and tell them that they would have to do it again? Or would it
really matter? If it matters... would the priest in Rome have the heart to
tell them, given that they are not rich, don't have much petrol left for the
generator and their ISP charges them by the volume of data that they
download?

Another question. Insofar as the RCC has declared that even recordings of
the Pope's Easter blessing replayed later in the evening for those who were
not able to view the live direct TV transmission also carry the same
blessings to viewers of the recordings as to those who watched the
proceedings live on TV or who were physically attended the event. So...
would it be OK for the Inuit to record a remotely conducted mass in software
on a hardrive (or on digital tape) and allow the avatar to replay it as and
when necessary? Or would actual (real?) Telepresence be necessary every
time?

Of course the Protestant Inuit community in the next village 50 miles away
don't have any of the problems of these theological gymnastics, they can
just hold a Eucharist service any time they want... and where normally any
respected elder person could officiate but what if they are high church,
Church of England, Anglo-catholic protestants?

Why not just have a credit card operated automat mass booth or web
accessible continuous stream of masses linked to churches or stored on a
system. There could be a device attached to the booth or PC, which can then
dispense either stored or real time consecrated communion wafers? You could
make sure only catholics accessed this service by giving them an account
with a secret password or pin number and for extra security they could have
to answer a question from the catechism.

The RCC is already literally "outsourcing" masses from wealthy countries
with few priests available to say them to poor countries where there are
enough priests but with very little income. If you are a wealthy Catholic in
say Canada and there is no available priest or you don't like the local
priest or if he normally expects 50$ for a mass to be said in memory of your
deceased relative or in thanksgiving because you passed your driving test or
whatever. You can go online and book one for 25$ to be said by a priest in
India or some other third world country. You can book the mass on a Website
or by Email and put in your details, the information about the person or
reason for the mass and then you can pay for it by credit card. 

Out in India... it is some poor priests lucky day, he gets an Email with the
mass request and the information about who and why etc. and he also gets 25$
deposited into his PayPal account. Then he Emails you back confirming that
the mass was said by him at such and such church on the feast of whoever or
on the day requested etc. and saying thanks for the 25$ and if you want
anymore special masses celebrated please do get in touch.

If the catholic church claims as it does that these Web or Email ordered,
electronically paid for "remote masses" are just as valid and efficacious as
ones conducted locally then it is not to far a stretch to suggest that
Telepresence will be the next thing in remote delivery of catholic religious
services.

To those catholics who may think that all the above is merely mockery, I say
this... These are real and serious questions and since Vatican Two turned
out to be a dead duck, I think you may need Vatican Three to answer them,
either that or the church should really merge with Microsoft. If you think
that idea is far fetched, how come that to all intents and purposes the RCC
has already merged with News International (Rupert Murdoch is a Papal
Knight), the Mafia, the Italian Christian Democrats and various highly
dubious banks?

Tim Murphy

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