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Pope Benedict XVI made a big jump into the world of social networking today, making public statements about Facebook and MySpace and launching an official Vatican channel on YouTube.

The Pope celebrated the World Day of Communications on Friday with a statement calling social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace "a gift" that could speak to the "fundamental desire" we all have to connect, so long as people don't isolate themselves online, forget those marginalized by the Digital Divide or violate the "goodness and intimacy of human sexuality." To that we can only say, leave Britney alone!!

This week we're looking at how religious organizations are using Web technology. Today's post looks at a blog that aims to "challenge misconceptions and stereotypical perceptions about Islam and Muslims worldwide". The site is Inside Islam and we caught up with lead blogger Kaitlin Foley today to find out more. For the previous posts in our series, check out our reviews of LifeChurch.tv (a Christian church) and Shalom Hartman Institute (a Jewish institute).

This week we're looking at how religious organizations are using Web technology. Yesterday we reviewed LifeChurch.tv, an innovative Christian website. Today we check out what the Shalom Hartman Institute, from Jerusalem in Israel, is doing on the Web. Alan Abbey, the Website Manager of Shalom Hartman Institute, told us about his site in the comments to our previous post.

This week, as part of our ongoing Mainstream Web Watch series, we'll be looking into how religious groups are using Web technologies. As early adopters in the tech industry, many of us have near spiritual experiences about our favorite products - as Rob Cottingham highlighted in his RWW cartoon over the weekend! But let's look at how actual religions are deploying web technologies to spread their respective gospels.

In this post we'll look at a Christian church, LifeChurch, which is using the Web in an extensive way. In upcoming posts we'll cover other religions, such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. Note that we're going to keep a tight focus on the technology - rather than what is being preached with the technology.