Cables, Clerics, and Tactical Backpacks

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TEC337: What do a parish priest, a two-parish pastoral associate, and a podcast CEO actually pack in their computer bags? Dom Bettinelli, Fr. Andrew Kinstetter, and Joanne Mercier compare their real-world gear setups — bags, devices, cables, and the odd surprises tucked in the corners.

Fr. Andrew travels light by necessity: his iPhone covers parish emergencies, he has PC setups at both his Wyoming parishes, and his personal travel kit fits in a Timbuktu messenger bag with a tomtoc laptop sleeve. He keeps chargers for iPhone, MacBook Pro, and Apple Watch — plus a USB floppy disk drive for DOS games that he refuses to apologize for.

Joanne works in two parishes with different tech setups and carries accordingly. Her Vera Bradley rolling bag holds a HyperJuice 100W GaN charger, two HyperDrive USB hubs (one for the computer, one for the iPad), three USB-C cables, HDMI, thumb drives for the Windows-only crowd, AirPods — and teabags, because no one ever has decaf.

Dom depends on the trip. Day-to-day, his tomtoc sling bag fits his 13″ iPad Air with Magic Keyboard perfectly. For heavier travel, the 5.11 Tactical Rush 24 2.0 backpack comes out — kitted with an Anker 25,000 mAh power bank, a labeled neon-green cable organizer, a Lisen 3-in-1 charging station (MagSafe + AirPods + Apple Watch on one USB-C cable), a GL.iNet MT3000 travel router (one captive portal login covers the whole family), an Anker docking station, a travel power strip, a folding umbrella, and a gallon plastic bag. Because you always need a plastic bag.

The panel also weighs in on the Vatican Synod Study Group’s document recommending a Pontifical Commission for Digital Culture and New Technologies. Fr. Andrew flags the canon law headaches of digital jurisdiction. The group agrees: the Church’s digital presence should strengthen local parish life, not replace it — and formation matters more than regulation.

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