Sharing the Encyclical and Other Words of Love
by John Feister

(If you don’t have time to read this now, please take note of the buttons on the right. They are free for the taking, for you to use on your Web site. Click on a button to pick up the html code.)

Q U I C K S C A N

Parish Site of the Month
Worth a Click

The new year starts with a lot of activity for parish Web sites. The first thing on everyone’s mind today is Pope Benedict XVI’s new encyclical Deus Caritas Est, or in English, God Is Love. We’ve put together a nice Web feature that looks at the pope’s first year with a St. Anthony Messenger article from Rome correspondent Robert Mickens and links to the text of the encyclical. You’ll find a graphical link button on the right that you are free to use on your Web site, along with any others you find there.

Valentine’s Day is a time to help people understand a little more about Catholic interest in saints. O.K., it’s a bit of a stretch, but there is a real St. Valentine, and his feast is a huge cultural event. By sending a Catholic e-greeting, people can use the holiday to share their faith. Find out more at our Valentine’s Day feature.

Don't forget that Lent starts a little later—March 1 this year—and we’ll be updating our Lent feature as usual, and you’ll want to put a link on your site. Our exciting new radio program from the Catholic Communication Campaign, Lenten Radio Retreat, will be available in streaming audio. Details coming soon.

This starts our 10^th year of sending parish Webmasters our notes about how to improve your Web presence. We started not long after our site started, in 1996. I’d like you to consider some words that I wrote recently, for our partner Catholic Online, for the 40^th anniversary of Vatican II’s decree on social communication.

 “The rapid development of technology in the area of media is surely one of the signs of progress in today’s society.” Those are the opening words from Pope John Paul II’s final apostolic letter, The Rapid Development, published just one year ago, on January 24, 2005. It is almost as if Pope John Paul II were leaving Internet users with a lasting message of hope and encouragement.

Of course, the late Holy Father was commemorating a part of the 40^th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, in this case the promulgation of the document on communication (Inter Mirifica) issued in 1963, one of the early Vatican II documents. (We observed the anniversary of the Council’s closing last month.) In it the Council fathers recognized the communications revolution that was underway and challenged the Church to welcome and promote especially those new media of communication “among” (inter) the “wonderful” (mirifica) technological discoveries of our time—inter mirifica.

The Council itself was one of the first events ever broadcast worldwide on television via satellite. It was another step in a new era that has brought the world closer and closer together over the past 40 years—now closer than ever with the development of the Internet.

What are we to do with our newfound proximity? That perhaps is the deepest challenge of the Internet age—and it’s the basic challenge of the gospel.

In Christ Jesus we found both a newfound proximity with God and with each other. That closeness is in no way dependent upon our “wonderful” communications tools, but we are challenged by the gospel to use our communication tools to build solidarity among the human family.

That means, especially, standing together for the causes of our day that promote the protection of life, from “womb to tomb,” including social justice for everyone in-between. Our life as Catholics—including our use of the Internet—is a response to the call of Jesus to seek ever deeper communion with God and with each other.

The late pope said words a year ago that will challenge us for many years as we try to build up the human family: “The communications media have acquired such importance as to be the principal means of guidance and inspiration for many people in their personal, familial and social behavior.”

That’s no small role for the media. And it’s no small responsibility for those of us who are using the media more and more for person-to-person communication, whether in chat rooms, instant messages, threaded conferences, pictures sent over cell phones and whatever lies around the corner.

How can we guide? How can we inspire? How can we help those with whom we’re in touch to become stronger persons, contribute to stronger families, build up stronger communities? Those are some of the challenges that Pope John Paul left us with.

But of course, he was only passing along the Good News that he received from Jesus, through our Catholic tradition. Let’s hope we communicate some Good News, too, however we’re using the new and wonderful tools of communication.

John Feister
Editor, AmericanCatholic.org

Parish Site of the Month

St. Margaret of Scotland Parish (Archdiocese of St. Louis)
With its simple and attractive design, this parish Web site does a nice job of conveying valuable information about the church and its history, ministries and committees without being weighed down with heavy use of graphics or scripts. It is not only a great inspiration for anyone volunteering as a parish Webmaster who doesn’t have much experience, but also a reminder that good sites don’t need bells and whistles to be effective. Check out the parish timeline, the bulletin archive and FAQs.

Worth a Click

myCatholic.com
This Web site “is the first Catholic Web portal that allows users to choose their own content, layout and preferences. It offers daily Mass readings, reflections, news, commentary, custom RSS/Atom feeds, a Catechism study, links, tools and more.” Customize what you see when visiting myCatholic.com by adding and deleting feeds from a variety of Catholic outlets, including Catholic News Service, Vatican Information Service and the USCCB, and other sources such as BBC News, Slashdot and ZDNet. Also, alter the appearance of the site’s layout and other preferences with simple online tools.

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