Virtual Roman Catholic museum seen as educational tool

NIJMEGEN – A new website targeting youths aged 16 and over, aims to promote awareness of the history of Dutch Roman Catholicism. An initiative of the Radboud University Nijmegen and its Katholiek Documentatie Centrum, the website, a virtual museum, resembles a house with many rooms, each with a theme. To ‘decorate’ the rooms, organizers used photographs, movies, sound bites and other digitized sources such as book illustrations, school art reproductions, slides and family devotionals (such as devotieprentjes). The project’s sponsors want to further knowledge of religion and confessional matters in the Netherlands, which according to the university are part of the Dutch national history canon. Organizers also offer curriculum material for schools.