The Internet makes theology accessible to a wider audience

Published May 17, 2018

Joséphine Kloeckner poses three questions to Brother Michel Van Aerde OP, founder and director general of Domuni, the rapidly expanding online university founded by the Dominicans, which is now celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Joséphine Kloeckner: How was the Domuni project created?

Brother Michel Van Aerde: I first learned of the Internet while I was in Peru working with an NGO. Even then, I could already see its usefulness as a tool of communication as in France we were still using Minitel [a pre-Internet communications linked to phone lines].

When I was elected provincial of Toulouse, I returned [to France] and I noticed that there were many young people in contact with our community and I began to think that it was possible to do something.

At first, development was very slow. The Internet had just launched and there was a great deal of skepticism about it.

We were the first to begin! We had to gain students’ confidence.

So we started Domuni, which is an abbreviation of “Dominican” and “University,” originally simply for “artistic purposes” without thinking of conferring diplomas.

At that time, we only taught theology. However, when we started teaching philosophy in 2005, it opened many doors for recognition as a university and now we are also beginning to offer social sciences.

Today, Domuni offers 500 courses, soon in six languages with the Arabic version launching this summer, and no fewer than 250 teachers.

It is really starting to take off. Two years ago, we were growing at 17 percent per year and now it’s up to 53 percent with six or seven new enrollments each day only for the French version.

We have also moved to the smartphone with responsive pages.

In your view, what has made you so successful?

Recognition as a university, increasing visibility and word of mouth are evidently important.

However, Domuni was also conceived from the beginning for the poor and for those who lack time.

The Internet has enabled us to bring together teachers who are widely spread. It also allowed us to offer courses to people who may not have access to university because they live in rural areas or their ordinary work prevents them from following courses.

This is why our 3,000 students are very different from those who can be found in the seminaries. Many are often already established at work and would have loved to study theology or philosophy at university but were unable to do so because of their professional studies.

The Internet has allowed us to open up to this much larger audience.

We also have many priests, who are thus able to continue their studies without interrupting their pastoral activities. Our strength is our flexibility amid all these various profiles.

Thanks to a  core of students, who pay their enrollment fee of 1,500 euros a year, we are self-financed and we are even able to offer scholarships to the less fortunate.

Finally, I think that our success is also linked in part to the very organization of the Dominican order.

Although our system is very old, it is in fact very modern. We have a very democratic way of operating, which is exceptional in the church, and we operate as a network, which makes us very adaptable to the Internet.

Thanks to this, we had no difficulty in recruiting teachers from around the world.

Have you encountered any resistance?

There are still people who don’t understand. Some people forget that teaching at a distance has long been a component of the Catholic tradition.

Moreover, even though the courses are online, there is proximity and many interactions. We regularly meet at conferences or other events.

Others see us as competitors because theology courses are difficult to promote. However, our audience is not the same and in any case the world is large!

The Gospel teaches us that there are never enough of us and that each effort is necessary.

Finally, we follow the orientations of Pope Francis, who emphasized a new way of teaching theology in his Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium.

He called for “a courageous cultural revolution” and also mentioned “education at a distance.”