This Kerala church wants all believers to use smartphones

A circular has been issued seeking believers to start using smartphones The Archdiocese also asked parishes to become equipped digitally The Diocese will provide training for the digitisation mission in four stages

The Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly (formerly known as Archdiocese of Ernakulam) of the Syro Malabar Church has asked believers to go digital and to have smartphones. The call was made as part of Church's digitisation mission aiming at faster dissemination of divine messages and information. 

Auxiliary Bishop Sebastian Adayantharath issued a circular and asked parishes of the archdiocese to read it out on Sunday. The project Archdiocesan Internet Mission (AIM) envisages to keep as many as 260 parishes and other departments of the archdiocese under a 24/7 network. 

This includes over 400 priests and nuns and over five lakh laity of the Church. The mission also aims to introduce a robust hardware system consisting of computers, printers, broadband internet with 3G and 4G connections and scanners at all the parishes. 

The circular states that all the monasteries must be equipped with the computer, printer, scanner etc. along with broadband connection having either 3G or 4G connection. It also asked believers to use an android mobile phone with a high-speed connection. 

The diocese will also provide training for the digitisation mission in four stages. The parishes and family members are directed to comply with the registration process in their parishes during the first phase. 

In the second phase, services of the Church will be made available on the digital platform, while in the third phase training will be given to priests on keeping the account. The fourth phase aims at reaching the services provides by family apostolate and others to individuals and families online. 

The circular also states that 222, out of 264 parishes have already started data entry operations and have registered as many as 63,691 families and 271,478 individuals. The circular had called for completion of data entry in three months time.