In 1995 the Monastery of Christ in the Desert produced a website, www.christdesert.org, that by 1996 had attained a market reach of 12% of online users — a reach that ranked it among the top five online destinations in the world, and thus among Yahoo, Netscape and the other most trafficed sites of the early years of the Internet.

The director of the monastery's web project, Br. Aquinas, was subsequently called to Vatican City where he served as a resident consultant to the Holy See. While there he composed a strategic Internet plan for the Vatican, based upon the long term potential of ubiquitous personal digital networks to enrich human relationships and spiritual community. Br. Aquinas then founded nextScribe to conduct the research and development that would be necessary to advance the objectives of that plan.

Subsequently, nextScribe has undertaken research projects with both Catholic and Protestant churches.

While directing nextScribe, Br. Aquinas' strictly cloistered monastic vows came up for renewal. Upon consideration of Br. Aquinas' new mission, his Archbishop judged that his new vocation to develop the spiritual potential of social digital networks — which had carried him from a primitive desert hermitage to Rome and an active life working with lay people — was no longer that of a hermit monk. Thus, though Aquinas no longer bears monastic vows or the title "Brother," he has retained the name of his vocational patron, St. Thomas Aquinas.

A selection of articles describing nextScribe, and its genesis from the Monastery of Christ in the Desert:

Jesus (in Italian)
9 September 2002
Frà Aquinas del deserto

MSNBC Interview
12 November 1999
A new way of communicating faith

New York Times, Sunday Page One
17 March 1996
Monks Want to Illuminate Design Sites on Internet

ABCNEWS.com
24 April 1998
Bringing The Word Online

National Catholic Reporter
17 April 1998
Monk targets Catholic slice of on-line market

Time Magazine Cover Story
16 December 1996
Finding God on the Web

New York Times Book Review
2 June 1996
The Word & The Web

USA Today
13 November 1996
Monks called to put the Vatican's word on the web

Technos Quarterly Cover Story
Fall 1996
Illumination in the Desert

Life Magazine
June 1996
A Light in the Desert

Ecumenical News International
30 October 1998
Internet brings millions of 'visitors' to desert monastery

Review for Religious
31 March 1997
From parchment to cyberspace: good news about the Internet