(ANS - Montevideo) - "Already we have parishes in many countries, in Argentina, Spain, Italy, United States ... and we hope that there will be more and more parishes, and more and more volunteers who will add new places." So said the young Uruguayan Rodrigo Pérez, introducing a new App that lets you know when and where you can go to Mass in the various countries of Latin America and the world.

“The App is called Vamos a Misa (Let’s go to Mass). It originated in the first place thanks to a tweet from the Rector Major Emeritus of the Salesians, Fr Pascual Chávez. He invited Salesians and other religious to go on the social networks, because it is there that young people spend most of their time," Pablo Sanchez, one of the developers of the App, told ACI Prensa.

With this in mind, he met Pablo Rodrigo, who was on vacation away from his community and did not know where to go to mass. This led to the start of a new digital pastoral service.

Several hundred people use it every day ... we used to joke about the fact that we were the only two who used it but in fact, as soon as we launched it on National Youth Day, it began to spread among many young people," added Sanchez.

The beginning was not easy. The first difficulty was trying to keep the Mass times up to date. This led to one of the main features of the service: "The information is kept updated by the users themselves," says Pérez. Furthermore, "the application identifies automatically the place where you are and consequently is able to recommend the nearest parish to go to and the time of Mass there.”

Pablo also notes that the application wants to go further and help parishes to publicize not only mass times, but all their activities: catechesis, meetings, special celebrations, etc. The developers are hoping that users can "integrate into the parish and that the parish can integrate into the district," as Sanchez says.

The App can be found at the address www.vamosamisa.com from any device with web access. It can be downloaded for free from any tablet or smartphone with the Android system. To add new schedules and update the times of Mass it is enough to access it through a Google or Facebook account.  We would like to say to App developers that their suggestions and proposals are welcome and can be sent to our profile on Facebook and Twitter.

A video presenting the App is available on ACI Prensa.

Published 29/01/2015