A Montreal Catholic parish has begun broadcasting its services online in an effort to reach younger parishioners.
About a year ago, a parishioner at the Notre-Dame de la Consolata parish on Jean-Talon E. in the Petite-Patrie district came up with the idea of webcasting its masses, as a way of broadening its audience.
The church installed a web cam, and set up a service that parishioners can sign up for. Angelo Polcaro, the church's secretary, says while it was designed as an innovative way to bring the church to a younger audience, he says he's surprised at how many older folks have been watching.
"I was suprised to find out how many of the older crowd have computers and the Internet," he says. "A lot of people are asking, 'can I get on? Can I get on? Can I get on?' The interest is there, let's put it that way."
Polcaro says like many churches across the city, they've been struggling to hold on to their audience — and fund their day-to-day operations.
"To run a church is very expensive," he says. "There's renovations, always, and maintaining. So this...is one way, we thought, to gain more funds to do our maintenance, basically."
The church was built in 1964, and primarily serves members of Montreal's Italian community. The masses in both English and Italian are broadcast online.