Over 35,000 people have signed up for PopeAlarm.com, a service of the Fellowship of Catholic University students that sends out a free text and e-mail alert when the next Pope is elected. “The reaction has been fantastic and overwhelming,” said Kevin Cotter, FOCUS web director. “It’s been great to be at the forefront of Catholic new media and getting the word out there.” Demand for the service has been high since its launch on Saturday March 9. As of Monday morning, over 35,000 people had registered for the service. The PopeAlarm.com website received over 140,000 page views. “It’s really exploded and caught on fire,” Cotter said. “There’s a lot of social media traction.” FOCUS staff will use the service to notify registered users when white smoke appears from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel, the traditional signal that the next Pope has been elected. It is sponsored by the organization, which is based in the Denver area. Cotter was inspired to launch the site because he could not find any service to alert him when the white smoke is first seen. He said the 2013 conclave marks the first time a papal election has taken place with this technology. The web director noted that the success of PopeAlarm.com and an unrelated initiative called Adopt-a-Cardinal shows that Catholics are “very excited” about praying for the next Pope, about knowing who he is and about supporting him. Cotter said that secular media sometimes has a “downtrodden view” of Catholics relative to the papacy that ignores many Catholics. “We’re very enthusiastic about the Church,” he said. “There are a lot of Catholics out there that have a real optimism. The Church is made for greatness,” he added. “We don’t always live up to that greatness, but we aspire to it and we want to be led to further greatness to continue the work of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.” FOCUS is attempting to expand service to meet demand in the U.S. and Canada. The service presently requires a U.S. or Canadian phone number. Cotter told CNA that FOCUS is working to respond to the many international requests for a PopeAlarm site that can handle text messaging in other countries. PopeAlarm will also announce the papal election through its Twitter account “@popealarm.”
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...