Virtual Communion: Theology of the Internet and the Catholic Sacramental Imagination

(Paperback)

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Virtual Communion: Theology of the Internet and the Catholic Sacramental Imagination provides a theological account of the internet from a Catholic perspective. It engages digital culture by providing a context for media and mediation within the Catholic tradition, specifically focusing on the ecclesiology and sacramentality of the church. Katherine G. Schmidt argues that the Catholic imagination is inherently consonant with the idea of the virtual, understood as the creative space between presence and absence, bringing the fields of media studies, internet studies, sociology, history, and theology together in order to give a theological account of the social realities of American Catholicism in light of digital culture. Overall, Schmidt argues that the social possibilities of the internet afford the church great opportunity for building a social context that allows the living out of Eucharistic logic learned in properly liturgical moments.

Reviews

Is the internet nothing but a dystopian arena of trolls, bullying, and disinformation, or can digital communication also affirm life-giving community Katherine Schmidt makes an ingenious (and possibly heroic) argument that aligns digital space with the churchs incarnational and sacramental imagination, and detects a shared assumption of mediation and symbolic exchange. Her claim that digital life and ecclesial life can positively influence each other is a novel and penetrating American Catholic insight that raises Pope Francis claim that everything is connected into a new and hopeful key. -- Anthony J. Godzieba, Villanova University
Virtual Communion offers a distinctively theological engagement with the internet. Drawing from diverse sources ranging from medieval pilgrimage literature to contemporary sacramental theology, Schmidt argues that Catholicism should embrace its own wisdom about mediation in debates about community and the internet. Critically engaging with idealized theologies of the Church, this book shows how the internet might function as a liminal space in which the Churchs claims to communion can be enacted in relationship with the world. -- Vincent J. Miller, University of Dayton

Author Bio

Katherine G. Schmidt is assistant professor of theology and religious studies at Molloy College.