With all the hoopla over the new (but poorly named) "Confession" app (it's more accurately described as an "examination of conscience" app, but that sounds much duller to journalists), it would be easy to overlook some other fine Catholic apps. Jack McLain, a Jesuit priest and self-confessed technophile gives us the lowdown on the best ones.
During a recent discussion with a brother Jesuit about the inherent goodness or badness (I believe the terms ‘Luddite’ and ‘Borg’ were trotted out during the conversation) of smart phones, I asserted that there were plenty of Catholic-centric uses for such devices. In the great Jesuit fashion, my confrere asked me to prove it. So I began combing through Apple’s App Store in order to find the best Catholic apps I could.
From the beginning, I left a few things off of my list, most notably digital rosaries. I am not opposed to rosary apps; I have one actually, but trying to separate the sheep from the goats in this particular instance proved to be a little too bandwidth intensive. Most rosary apps had free versions so you could try them before you invest your 99 cents. My other criterion was one I alluded to above, namely, I wanted to find apps that were applicable to the non-techno person who was looking to use their device to add to their faith life. I focused exclusively on iPhone apps because of its userbase and because I don’t have access to an Android-based phone.
