Engineering the "Benedict Option"

In his 2017 bestseller The Benedict Option, author Rod Dreher called upon “serious Christian conservatives” to “develop creative, communal solutions to help us hold on to our faith and our values in a world growing ever more hostile to them” —or risk that our children and grandchildren will be assimilated into that culture.

The idea is adapted from St. Benedict, whose sixth-century rule of life for his monastic communities helped save and strengthen the Church after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Some Christians have taken Dreher’s strategy literally, forming intentional communities situated around their houses of worship, restricting their business and social circles as much as possible to like-minded individuals. Others seek means to exercise the Benedict Option in other ways — as through modern technology.

TO RECLAIM OUR CULTURE

“Innovation is a critical part of leading souls to salvation,” said Kailash Duraiswami, a technology entrepreneur and a member of Legatus’ Tampa Bay Chapter. “The new frontier of software technology has the power to allow Catholics to create self-suffciency unlike any time in history and provide a platform for us to reclaim our fallen culture.”

Much of the innovation in internet technology has focused on content distribution through websites and social-media platforms reachable through search engines and web browsers. While that technology has made good Catholic content and other valuable resources readily accessible and convenient, it has come at the risk of users becoming exposed to objectionable content, advertising, data mining, and privacy concerns. It also has meant using “software products provided by companies whose values were not only anathema to our own but who actively worked to undermine Christian culture,” Duraiswami explained.

His vision is to replace reliance on Big Tech companies with Catholic-owned technology that operates according to Catholic moral values and also protects their consumers from online threats and digital content that runs contrary to those values.

“We are entering a world where our right to economic initiative will include choosing explicitly Catholic companies to provide our basic internet services to communicate and transact online,” Duraiswami said. “Just like how generations ago we might choose to patronize a local Catholic baker, today in the internet age we can choose to utilize a Catholic software provider."

Doing so, he pointed out, will give Catholic consumers the power to use technology products “without having to weigh moral compromises and disagreements with the company providing the product they use.”

To that end, Duraiswami has taken a first step by founding Fidei, an email service that seeks to respect Catholic values. Fidei does not post advertising to users and therefore does not track user messages for marketing purposes as other services do.

“Privacy is one of our top concerns,” Duraiswami stated. “We want users to have an online experience that reflects, or at least does not contradict, their Catholic faith, so we respect privacy and are looking for ways to block objectionable content from coming to users via outside messages.”

Some responsibility for privacy always rests with the user. For example, users of any service should limit access to their email address and never click on questionable links. Duraiswami recommends that Fidei users limit their emails specifically to Catholic communications.

Since it is not supported by advertising, Fidei does require a small annual fee.

“Personal beliefs do count in making economic decisions,” Duraiswami explained. “Devout Catholics want services that do not clash with their values, so we are happy to provide an email domain that falls into that category.”

As Fidei grows, Duraiswami has plans to expand into other products, such as a wireless service, a social media platform, and even a Catholic online credit union. “Once we get a good handle on email, other aspects of Catholic-friendly online options are open to exploration,” he said.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Another entrepreneur with similar ambitions is Richy Orozco, based near Houston, TX. He started a few social media channels under the name Catholic Connect while still in college, posting Catholic content and gaining tens of thousands of followers. Later, with financial assistance from Sophia Institute Press and from Dan and Diane Dulac of Legatus’ Orange County Chapter, he began developing it into a social media platform complete with a mobile app, an online store, and a charitable giving site called The Catholic Connect Foundation that supports international Catholic missions. A few other investors also joined in support.

Successful as it was, Catholic Connect experienced growing pains. One of them was social media censorship.

“Although Instagram and Facebook attract a large number of global users, they do not align with our Catholic values or views,” Orozco said. “Many times, we have been unjustly banned by these social media companies for sharing pro-life content and other Catholic teachings, but we fight back and always end up getting our account back after appealing their decision to ban us.” Nevertheless, these platforms still “shadow-ban” Catholic Connect, he said, meaning they hide or bury its content and account on searches from the majority of global users.

Another issue was the investment required.

“We highly underestimated the amount it would cost to build this platform,” Orozco admitted, which slowed the full development of his plans. Still, with his present level of support — including from his own company, Houston IT Developers — “we are closer than ever to launching this platform for the good of the universal Catholic Church.”

Orozco’s most recent post on the Catholic Connect mobile app states that a “completely revamped” version of the app will be launched in October and will include “a website, and app premium subscriptions, and more cool stuff.” He said the update will include features helpful to parishes and their staffs. Other elements in the works include a Catholic news portal.

MEN ON A MISSION

For both Orozco and Duraiswami, the intentional communities they hope to form online are not about insulating Catholics from the world, but about proclaiming the Catholic faith to others.

“Our mission is to evangelize through the use of technology and to help the Catholic Church be fully connected and readily prepared to draw people into the fullness of truth,” said Orozco. Catholic Connect’s goal, he added, “is to help all people, Catholics and non-Catholics, come back home to the Catholic Church.”

Duraiswami agreed: technology actually empowers Catholics to evangelize.

“Economic self-suffciency points to the Benedict Option where Christian people ‘build intentional communities of counter-cultural witness,’” he said. “Self-suffciency in the digital world will provide a new foundation to take risks for God, because it allows us to live intentionally together as countercultural Christians no matter how far away we are from each other. New software will furnish the ability for Catholics to live, communicate, bank, and transact online without moral compromise, without exposure to the great evils found on the internet today.”

These changes, he affirmed, “will provide the platform for Catholics to boldly evangelize in our fallen culture.”

Gerald Korson is acting efitor of Legatus magazine. Trent Beattie contributed to this article