“It’s more accessible so it feels like it’s more in the now,” he said. “Sometimes with books, it feels more like an older thing but bringing this into the iPhone and new pod technology makes it more relevant to me.”

Catholic faith apps for the iPhone are offered in a wide variety of options from the Hail Mary app, offering a digital rosary, to the iConfess app, equipping users with confessional prayers and a list of suggestions of sins to confess.

Cale Clarke, co-creator of the New Mass app, believes these faith apps are good for the future of the Church.

“I think we have to use every means available to us in order to spread the Gospel,” said the pastoral assistant at St. Justin Martyr Catholic Church in Unionville, Ont.

“These apps are just a platform to reach people who otherwise might not be interested… We’ve got to take advantage of the means that we have.”

While Clarke said some people may have a problem with the digital medium young people are using to connect with their faith, he believes the content is what matters.

Friar Richard Riccioli, pastor at Toronto’s St. Bonaventure Church, agrees faith apps are a good thing, but he believes they’re still  limited.

“I’m not sure I can see people praying with their iPods or iPads,” he said.

But Riccioli, who is waiting for his iPhone to arrive, said he’ll absolutely be downloading some faith-related apps when it does.

“It will be a question of seeing how that actually works. So it will be the novelty of it. Instead of bringing my breviary (to Mass), I’ll bring  my iPhone and be using the iBreviary,” he said with a laugh.  

One of the benefits, he said, is that apps give a new way to contain documents and information, making prayer a little more accessible.

“If I have the breviary on there (the iPhone), then I’ve always got my breviary with me, or some other sort of prayer app or the rosary.”

Joyce Smith, a Ryerson University journalism professor who recently hosted the seventh International Conference on Media, Religion and Culture, said Catholic communication has always been very quick to embrace new technology.

But she said that while faith apps are interesting, she doesn’t think they’re all that powerful in terms of change.

Instead, what Smith finds interesting is the ritual use of this new technology.

“It’s one thing if I can download a version of the Bible, but it’s another thing if I’m using something in a ritual way. At what point does my iPhone take on the importance of the symbolic nature that a set of rosary beads does?  Does the technology get in the way of human beings experiencing spiritual moments or does it actually help?”

As for Mezzavilla, he is sticking with his other app, the Roman Catholic Calendar, for its convenience.

“It’s more information that I would not be able to get otherwise. I don’t have any calendars,” he said.

“It also gives you the readings for the day. During the week, I don’t usually go to Mass… but for the Sunday Mass, it will have the exact same Gospel that the priest would say so I can follow along on my iPhone.”