La Crosse, January 30, 2008 (CNS): First there was YouTube. Then there was GodTube. Now there’s Catholic-Tube. Streaming video is all the rage on the Internet, and some people are starting to realize how valuable a tool this technology can be in reaching out to young Catholics.

 

If St. Augustine were alive today, he "would have done his ’Confessions’ in video and streamed it on the Internet," Travis Boudreaux, the tech-savvy Louisiana Catholic who founded Catholic-Tube.com several months ago, told The Catholic Times, newspaper of the Diocese of La Crosse.

On his Catholic-Tube blog, Boudreaux posts daily some of what he considers the best Catholic videos and podcasts uploaded to major sites such as YouTube.com and GodTube.com, as well as smaller Catholic operations such as LoveToBeCatholic.com and SQPN.com.

A veteran Web watcher, Boudreaux believes that video is the future of the Internet. "There will always be room for audio and the written word, but video provides a dynamic that’s not there otherwise," he said. "Imagine if you could see St. Augustine’s emotion. There’s so much that’s lost without voice inflection and hand gestures."

YouTube.com was created in 2005 and was bought by Google Inc. in October 2006. According to Alexa.com’s statistical analysis, YouTube is currently the third most frequented Web site on the Internet. On YouTube, users can upload, view and share music videos and television clips, as well as video content of their own creation. More than 65 million videos have been uploaded to date. While no pornographic or nude videos are permitted, YouTube relies on its community of viewers to identify and flag such uploads, meaning there is a definite time lag before they come down.

A quick search of YouTube’s contents for "Christian" will return a staggering 329,000-plus videos, while a search for "Catholic" will yield 21,000-plus results. Several bishops use the site, including Philadelphia’s Cardinal Justin Rigali, who posted a series of reflections, and Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins, whose monthly "Lectio Divina" meditations have been watched by thousands of viewers.

 

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