PROVIDENCE — When John Mullaney and his fiancé, Susan, approached Father Marcel Taillon about getting married in the Catholic Church, the pastor had a list of resources to help the couple prepare for a Catholic marriage. They signed up for a diocesan marriage preparation class and, since neither had completed their sacraments, joined the RCIA program at St. Thomas More Parish, Narragansett. However, Father Taillon had one more resource for the couple, a less conventional but no less effective one in helping them prepare for married life. He recommended John and Susan log onto FORMED.org and watch “Beloved,” a video series about Catholic marriage available free to parishioners online.
“It was great, it was informative, it was a lot of things,” said Mullaney during a phone interview. “Some of the things we’ve talked about before, but a lot of it was thought-provoking and contemplative and I think very helpful for couples who are going to be married in the Catholic Church.”
“Beloved” is one of several sacramental preparation programs available through FORMED, an online resource that gathers Catholic movies, e-books, faith formation programs and talks and makes them available for streaming online. Called “Catholic Netflix” by many of those who use it, the website offers a parish-based subscription model that allows churches to use FORMED within their parish ministries and distribute an access code for parishioners’ personal use at home. As of this past summer, 27 parishes in the Diocese of Providence had subscribed to FORMED and more were expected to join thanks to the opportunity provided by a donor who offered to subsidize half the subscription cost for any parish for two years.
“I think it’s cutting edge in the sense of having one resource where there’s Catholic content,” said Edward Trendowski, director of the diocesan Office of Faith Formation. “It’s a way of bringing the Catholic faith into parish life in a lot of different ways. In the last two years, it’s just grown tremendously.”
FORMED began in 2015 as a product of the Augustine Institute, a Denver-based graduate school of theology that recently merged with Lighthouse Catholic Media. Originally launched as a way to make the Institute’s sacramental preparation programs available online, the platform quickly expanded through partnerships with other Catholic publishers and now includes content from Ignatius Press, Word on Fire, the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception and the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. Users can watch a documentary on the life of St. Anthony, listen to talks by Bishop Robert Barron or put on the popular Brother Francis cartoon series for their kids.
“What FORMED is, is an unprecedented partnership of many Catholic apostolates that have joined together to provide their content in one place to help Catholic parishes worldwide have one place where they can go for all their faith formation and evangelization needs,” said Dan Donaldson, director of diocesan and strategic partnerships for FORMED.
“FORMED.org isn’t just a website,” he added. “It’s a platform for the Catholic faith.”
With its user-friendly interface and subscription model, Donaldson said he’s not surprised users have begun comparing FORMED to the movie-streaming giant Netflix. Like its secular counterpart, FORMED allows anyone with an access code to watch movies and shows on their computer or mobile device. However, Donaldson emphasized the resource goes beyond video content to also offer audio series, e-books and audiobooks as well as educational series intended for sacramental preparation or Bible study. The website contains a large section of children’s and youth content and a growing collection of content in Spanish.
“Everything that goes on FORMED is theologically vetted and reviewed by a content review team. It has to go through an entire process,” he said. “We don’t just put anything on FORMED – it has to be true to the Catholic faith.”
Madge Thombs, coordinator of baptism preparation at St. Theresa and St. Christopher Parish, Tiverton, has begun incorporating FORMED into her ministry preparing families for baptism. Because the format of the parish’s baptism program only allows for a single one-on-one session with parents and godparents, she told Rhode Island Catholic she has begun recommending the “Reborn” series to those who would like additional formation.
“It’s just a really nice resource for people to be able to look at in their own leisure time,” she said. “This is something fairly new that we’re starting to try.”
Connie DiOrio, religious education coordinator at St. Thomas More Parish, has also begun integrating FORMED into her curriculum. She said she finds the visual content helpful for middle school-aged students, in particular, and, despite some difficulties with the website’s Search function and a need for more content on the topic of the Eucharist, has encouraged her catechists to use content from the website in their classes.
“I’ve never had the opportunity to go into a website and not only study but to listen and to watch beautiful movies. It’s a great variety and I keep learning, it’s so important for me,” she said.
According to Donaldson, the Augustine Institute continues to expand FORMED with new content on a regular basis and recently launched a mobile app for iOS devices with an Android version in the planning stages. The website also offers leader resources and has expanded its parish support staff to help parishes and other groups implement content into their ministry.
“We’re committed to helping people make the most of it,” said Donaldson. “It’s one thing to have this online platform, this place where people can go, but the other thing is how do we do this? How do we use it?”
According to Father Taillon, despite the program’s contemporary look and modern distribution model, FORMED’s greatest use is in meeting an old-fashioned need, the need for greater education and a deeper understanding of the Catholic faith within the Church’s own walls.
“The greatest poverty in the Church today is a lack of catechesis,” he said. “Even people who are practicing don’t understand why we pray certain ways. FORMED helps even already practicing [Catholics] deepen their faith in Christ. That’s why I think this is so critical, people don’t know the faith. They believe and they practice, but they don’t know the faith.”
