Why I Started This

The question that started everything was not technological. It was pastoral. I watched people leave Mass and return to a world that offered them a thousand more immersive, more engaging, more emotionally compelling experiences than anything the Church was offering in digital spaces.

I am not saying the Mass is not powerful — I believe with all my heart that it is the most transformative encounter available to a human person. But I began to ask: what happens between Sundays? What happens to the faith that was kindled at the altar when it enters a world of screens, algorithms, and infinite distraction?

Sacred Presence Initiative is my attempt at an answer. Not a replacement for the Church — an extension of its reach into the spaces where people actually live.

The Moment I Understood Ignatius

I had read the Spiritual Exercises before. But it was only when I first put on a VR headset and found myself standing in a digital recreation of the Sea of Galilee that I suddenly understood what Ignatius was asking for in the "composition of place."

"See with the eyes of the imagination the physical place where the thing I want to contemplate is found."

He was describing virtual reality. In 1522. With no technology whatsoever — only the disciplined imagination and the grace of God. I think he would have been fascinated by what we are building. And I think he would have had very precise requirements for how it should be done.

On the Fear of Getting This Wrong

I am not a theologian by training. I am a person of faith who takes the tradition seriously and is trying to serve the Church with the tools available to me. That combination — genuine faith, genuine humility about my own limitations — is both the engine of this project and its greatest safeguard against the hubris that plagues so much "tech for religion" work.

The framework was not born from confidence. It was born from fear — a healthy, productive fear of getting this wrong in a way that could harm souls. That fear is what drove me to theologians, to bishops, to the documents of the Church. And it is what drives me still, every day, as we build something that has never been built before.