The Vatican is supporting Modern technology that offers the book of daily prayers, often read by priests, on the  iPhone. The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications is adopting the iBreviary, an iTunes software created by a tech guru Italian priest, Reverand Paolo Padrini, in collaboration with an Italian web designer. The software includes the Breviary prayer book - in English, Italian, Franch, Spanish, and Latin. In the foreseeable future, German and Portuguese will be offered as well. Another part  includes the prayers of the daily mass and a third contains additional other prayers.

The iBreviary was downloaded roughly 10,000 times in Italy during a trial period, and subsequently, an official version was released earlier in December. The software has a price tag of 0.79 euros in Europe and 99 cents US at the American iTunes store. Upgrades to the software will be free of charge. Padrini’s revenues form the sales will be forwarded for charitable purposes.

Monsignor Paul Tighe, the secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications, offered highest praises for the novel software, saying the Church “is learning to use the new technologies primarily as a tool or as a mean of evangelizing, as a way of being able to share its own message with the world.” The current Pope, Benedict XVI, is a classical music enthusiast who had been given an iPod in 2006, and has actively sought to reach out to the younger population using new media devices. For example, during last summer’s World Youth Day in Sydney, he sent out mobile phone text messages which cited scripture to thousands of registered pilgrims - signed with the pontiff’s name as a tagline “BXVI.”