Catholic Bible study project wins entrepreneurial award
Spanish entrepreneur Yael Moreno’s “Según tu Palabra” project won first prize at the 10th annual His Way at Work event in Cancún, Mexico. The project aims to make Bible study more accessible through an annotated Bible and an app that creates personalized study plans based on users’ answers. Moreno developed the idea through the EROI Incubator at Francisco de Vitoria University after noticing a lack of Catholic Bible-study options when she sought to deepen her own faith. She is now working with the university’s Growth Lab to develop a prototype and assess whether the project can become a viable business.
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Yael Moreno’s Catholic Bible-study project, “According to Your Word,” won first prize at the 10th annual His Way at Work event in Cancún, Mexico. The project combines an annotated Bible with an app intended to tailor study guidance to individual users. 1
Moreno developed the proposal through the EROI Incubator at Francisco de Vitoria University in Spain. Its planned app would use a few questions to create a personalized study, while the Bible would provide space for readers to make notes. 1
Moreno said the initiative aims to make Bible reading more appealing and help Catholics who feel intimidated by Scripture or regard it as difficult to understand. She said she found few Catholic Bible-study options when she began seeking deeper study as a teenager. 1
Moreno’s interest in Scripture grew from her family’s involvement in Bible-study groups and biblical musical theater. After completing a degree in translation and interpreting, with a specialization in Syriac, she joined the EROI Incubator to explore whether entrepreneurship could be her vocation. 1
After winning the award, she joined UFV’s Growth Lab, where students are developing the business venture. She hopes to launch an initial app prototype and assess whether the idea can become a viable business. 1
The project’s stated aims include explaining the context of biblical books, attending to the original meaning of words, connecting Scripture with everyday life, and encouraging people to share what they learn. Moreno also said she wants the project to help guard against distortions of Jesus’ words, particularly in a world where artificial intelligence can make it harder to distinguish accurate information from falsehoods. 1
Accessible Scripture study as a means of Catholic evangelization
Accessible Scripture study can be a powerful form of Catholic evangelization when it helps people encounter Christ, understand the Bible within the faith of the Church, and connect the Gospel with daily life. Accessibility is not a matter of making Scripture shallow; it is making serious, prayerful engagement possible for more people—through clear language, useful guides, welcoming groups, and personal accompaniment.
Catholic evangelization is more than distributing information about religion. It proclaims Jesus Christ and invites people into friendship with him. Pope Francis describes personal dialogue as a natural beginning: listen to a person’s joys and concerns, then, when appropriate, bring in God’s word as a message of God’s personal love and saving presence. Scripture study becomes evangelizing when it supports this encounter rather than treating the Bible merely as a historical text or a collection of quotations.
Pope Francis states that biblical study should be available to every believer and that evangelization requires familiarity with God’s word. He therefore calls dioceses, parishes, and Catholic associations to provide ongoing Bible study and to encourage both personal and communal prayerful reading. The implication is important: Scripture study is not a specialist activity reserved for clergy or academics. It belongs in the ordinary life of Catholic communities and can help people discover the Gospel’s relevance to their actual questions and circumstances.
A study initiative is most fully evangelizing when it leads beyond “knowing about” the Bible toward hearing Christ, growing in faith, and living in charity. Pope Benedict XVI warns that a person has not grasped Scripture’s deeper meaning if reading it does not build love of God and neighbor.
People cannot readily study a text they cannot obtain, understand, or approach with confidence. St John Paul II therefore calls for wider access to Scripture, including translations and study guides for prayer and study in families and communities. He also stresses formation for clergy, catechists, and laypeople. Accessibility, in this sense, involves more than putting a Bible within reach. It includes helping people enter the text with guidance and the confidence to ask questions.
A format that is intelligible and attractive to contemporary readers can serve the Church’s mission without changing the Gospel’s substance. The bishops of England, Wales, and Scotland emphasize that the Church should present the Gospel in ways appropriate to changing times, while showing that Christian faith is not simply an interesting cultural or historical subject but a gift that can change life. The pastoral test is therefore not whether a method is novel, but whether it helps people hear the Gospel truthfully and respond to it.
Accessibility also includes a genuinely welcoming communal setting. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith calls for groups dedicated to listening to, meditating on, sharing, and praying with the Word, with regular meetings that complement Sunday Eucharist. It specifically notes that groups can incorporate lectio divina—a traditional prayerful reading of Scripture—as well as narrative methods. These approaches can help participants move from reading a passage to listening for its meaning, praying with it, and considering how it bears on life.
Making Scripture accessible does not mean treating every interpretation as equally sound or detached from the Church’s faith. St John Paul II teaches that biblical formation should attend to the literary forms of the books, the circumstances in which their human authors wrote, the unity of Scripture, and the Church’s living Tradition. This helps avoid both narrow fundamentalism and the opposite error of elevating private interpretation over the Church’s authentic teaching.
That balance matters in accessible Bible study. A group can welcome honest questions without implying that the text means whatever each participant wishes it to mean. Participants should be encouraged to examine a passage carefully and to relate it to the whole of Scripture and the Church’s faith. Accessibility is not achieved by removing context or doctrinal substance; it is achieved by explaining them in language people can follow.
Formation for facilitators is therefore part of the mission. John Paul II says that those who serve the Word should read and study Scripture constantly, with prayer, and should have some familiarity with modern biblical scholarship where possible. The goal is not to make every group leader an academic, but to equip leaders to guide discussion responsibly, distinguish what the text says from personal speculation, and direct difficult questions toward reliable Catholic teaching.
Scripture study can also prepare Catholics to share faith naturally. The Dicastery’s recent guidance highlights both the importance of regular Word-centered groups and the continuing primacy of personal encounters in transmitting the faith. It presents friendship as a setting for personal witness, mutual support, and sharing life’s joys and struggles. A Bible group can therefore become more than a meeting: it can form relationships in which people accompany one another and learn to speak about Christ in ordinary life.
The US bishops’ pastoral framework for youth and young adults similarly connects encounter with Jesus to ongoing formation, discipleship, and witness. It stresses the importance of sharing personal stories of how God works in everyday experience, while emphasizing that Church teaching cannot be separated from the proclamation of Christ. This offers a practical model: study Scripture, relate it to lived experience, and let that encounter form a community capable of witnessing to the Gospel.
The broader lesson is that accessible Scripture study can serve evangelization when it holds together welcome, fidelity, prayer, and lived witness. It welcomes people into the Bible without presuming expertise; it remains rooted in the Church’s reading of Scripture; it makes room for prayer and conversation; and it bears fruit in love of God and neighbor. Done in this way, Bible study helps the Church offer the Gospel in an understandable form without reducing it to mere information or personal opinion.