MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Roman Catholic church will launch a campaign to spread the "Good News" using cell phone text-messaging technology that is very popular in this Southeast Asian nation, especially among youths.
In a pastoral letter to be read in churches Sunday, Manila Archbishop Cardinal Jaime Sin said the campaign — called "catextism" in a play on the term catechism — will feature spiritual messages, prayers and random passages from the Bible sent as text messages by cell phone.
"We are now a 'text generation,' " Sin wrote. "And so the Church seeks to avail of this potential tool for evangelization and spiritual nourishment."
He said the campaign was in response to a recent challenge by Pope John Paul II "to make room for Christ in mass communications."
Ramon Isberto, spokesman for mobile phone operator Smart Communications, said he was told by church authorities that the service is the first in the Catholic world and was brought into operation with help from the Jesuit Communication Center in Dublin, Ireland.
To access the service, cell phone users are asked to key in the word "amen" and dial a number. A message immediately comes back asking the user to register a nickname. Once this is done, another message appears offering users the choice of receiving a prayer or a religious reflection.
Text messaging is a feature now widely available on digital cell phones — especially those that use GSM technology, the dominant cell phone standard in Asia and Europe, where the version used is called Short Message Service, or SMS.
Isberto said more than 100 million text messages are generated in the Philippines daily, about 10-15 percent of global SMS traffic.