Can You See Me Now? Catholics, Archdiocese Build Family Communication Network

AmigoLatino is happy to welcome our new affiliate in the City of Philadelphia, the Catholic Institute for Evangelization. Thanks to the initiative and generosity of Mr. Jim Delaney and his wife Jacki, Hispanic families and friends of the Philadelphia Archdiocese will now be able to enjoy AmigoLatino’s family video conferencing service to reunite live, with friends and family between the US and Latin America. Thank you very much for your kind support and below is an article by the Catholic Standard & Times:

(left to right, back) James Coffey, Jim Delaney, Mons. Hugh Shields, Abel Osorio. (left to right, al front) Theresa Scanlan, Sister Amelia Breton and Joselyn Martínez during a demonstration of the video conferences at the Catholic Institute for Evangelization on Wed the 5th of March.

By Sabrina Vourvoulias
CS&T Managing Editor

PHILADELPHIA — A Guatemalan woman in the United States converses with her mother half a continent away. Their hands fly with gestures, forming words of news, of love, of distance temporarily bridged. The conversation is possible only because they are visible to one another on-screen in a video conference.

The gift of technology makes possible what was once impossible, at least for those with the financial means and access to the technology. And now, thanks to the vision and commitment of a Catholic couple from St. John Vianney Parish in Gladwyne, Jim and Jacki Delaney, and the archdiocesan Office of the Vicar for Hispanic Catholics, access to technology in the form of videoconferencing will soon be available to all who might not otherwise be able to afford it.

“It is the Church reaching out,” Jim Delaney said during a demonstration of the technology on March 5 at the Catholic Institute for Evangelization, 4404 North 5th Street.

Delaney, a retired business executive, is a member of the Papal Foundation, a trustee of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and a Steward of St. John Neumann.

“It was on my most recent trip with the Papal Foundation to
El Salvador that I saw the need of keeping the Hispanic communities linked to their families and to their Church” he said. “This realization stimulated my desire to assist the Catholic Church in some way to help these people.”

When an article in The New York Times drew his attention to the burgeoning business of teleconferencing reunions, he felt he had found the technological avenue for that assistance.

“This is all about family values — about the Church strengthening families,” said Msgr. Hugh Shields, archdiocesan Vicar for Hispanic Catholics. “Jim Delaney came to us with this project in mind — of connecting people here with people there. And Jacki, a woman of commitment, a woman of capability, is very much a force behind this, too.”

In planning how best to connect far-flung families, Delaney linked up with a videoconferencing company from Los Angeles — AmigoLatino— which had an established network of affiliates. Founded by Gabriel Biguria, the company has 13 sites in the United States, and 46 affiliates in 11 other nations (visit: www.amigolatino.com/coverage.html for a list of sites).

Through the company, U.S. callers pay $40 for a half-hour videoconference and $80 for an hour.

At the Institute in Philadelphia, however, users don’t pay a penny. Delaney has created a fund to subsidize the cost of every call.

According to Biguria, no other non-profit or religious organization has made such a financial commitment with the company. It is the only AmigoLatino site in the United States where calls are free.

“Jim wanted to make sure the charge would not fall to anyone,” Msgr. Shields said. Not even, he added, to the Archdiocese. In addition to paying for the calls, Delaney equipped the Institute with the technology necessary to become a videoconferencing site.

The Institute is ideal for the project because it is well known and central to Philadelphia’s Hispanic Catholics. The Institute is also handicapped-accessible, staffed by a bilingual team, and offers a kitchen and meeting areas where families can gather before or after the calls. That is an added bonus since the calls bring together large, often extended families.

According to Msgr. Shields, the calls are frequently placed just before or after a family member is baptized, receives first Communion or is married. The family members at each end of the videoconference may have no other opportunity to share in the joy of those sacraments.

“The focus of our Catholic Church to keep families united is what this project is all about,” Delaney said. “My hope is that families will keep their connection to each other and to the Church.”

To coordinate a videoconference, contact Sister Amelia Breton at the Catholic Institute for Evangelization at 215-324-8291. For information about funding the initiative or duplicating it, contact Theresa Scanlan at JD Capital, Inc., 610-643-6200.

Sabrina Vourvoulias is the managing editor of the Catholic Standard & Times. Contact her at svourvou@adphila.org.