Between digitalization and eventization: re-shaping the space of religious participation

To participate in a religious rite in an urban church in Metro Manila means to assist to the display of dozens of lights, irradiating from the attendants’ personal smartphones. Whether to take a picture to later share on their Instagram Stories, or to let relatives from any point of the world enjoy the ritual through a Facebook livestream, Christian devotees living in the global Filipino diaspora take part in digitally mediated religious events that connect groups of people in diLerent physical places. In this presentation I focus on the spatial dimension of the digitalization of religious events inside the transnational Filipino catholic community. The research seeks to find an answer to two main questions: are digital platforms like social networking sites and applications re- shaping traditional forms of religious expression and participation? Is digitalization intertwined with the dynamics of eventization of the contemporary experience of the sacred? If so, how are they related? According to the results of my ethnography on digital religious practices of a young Filipino priest in Monza, I argue that dynamics of digitalization and eventization in contemporary Catholicism converge in a re-definition of the space of expression of the sacred. Whether in digitalized urban venues or in online social media groups, today forms of religious participation re-shape the category of space in Catholic modes of participation, transcending physical limitations of traditional structures of communication. The discussion of these themes will start from an ethnographic question: can online environments such as social media platforms be perceived and lived as appropriate places for religious life?