Web Catholic Site of the Year
by John Feister

(To all who are receiving this for the first time, Welcome! This is not spam—we’ve been sending this e-newsletter, in one form or another, to Catholic webmasters since 1997. We occasionally expand the list by researching the Web among Catholic parishes and the like. We went looking for you! It’s a free service from the Franciscans and St. Anthony Messenger Press to help improve the Web ministry of evangelization we all have embarked on. If you don’t want to receive this e-newsletter, please click the “unsubscribe” button below.)

Q U I C K S C A N

Parish Site of the Month
Worth a Click

We want to use this issue to explain our new blog and a new, friendly Catholic webmaster’s competition we are launching as we try to improve our efforts for you. Through our new Web Catholic Blog, our Web team wants to open up the “two-way street” among parish webmasters, so we set up a blog where people can share ideas, hand out practical advice and maybe dream a little. Check out the Web Catholic Blog. You’ll see it’s just getting started. This will be your space—please add a comment!

In addition to comments, on the blog you’ll find an archive of this column, plus an ongoing list of the best of parish Web sites we’ve found, and an ongoing list of each month’s “Worth-a-Click” selection.  We’ll also include links for seasonal Web features, repeated from this e-newsletter.

I’m fond of calling parish Web sites “the parish bulletin on steroids.” Now I might think of our blog as “the Web Catholic e-newsletter on steroids.” The blog format provides an opportunity for a whole new way of interacting. And it will provide a valuable archive of ideas for the best in the Web for Catholic parishes.

Now, about the competition. The “Web Catholic Parish Site of the Year” will be an award (nothing fancy, we promise,) given out each October, to an outstanding parish site. That site will show us a good example of what a parish ought to do on the Web by combining form and function through pleasing design, handy features, good communication , regularly updated content—basically the things that go into what makes a parish site worth having. It need not be the most expensive, professional Web site; it’s more important that the site reflect an inspired sense of how a Web site can serve the life of a Catholic parish.

Submission deadline is September 1, 2007. There is no fee. Submission is as simple as sending an e-mail to webcatholic@americancatholic.org or posting a comment on the blog.

The winner will have the privilege of bragging rights—we’ll provide a fancy emblem that tells the world that your efforts have been recognized! We’ll send you a printed certificate, too, and some other small token of honor.

Parish Site of the Month

St. James Cathedral (Archdiocese of Seattle)
St. James Cathedral is celebrating its centennial, and you can read all about it in a special collection of pages entitled “It’s Your Cathedral!” Here you can explore this church’s rich history through an online presentation of timelines, photographs, personal accounts and a special section for kids. There are a lot of other things worth checking out. From the main page, browse the links on the left for coming events, a virtual tour, homilies, a bookstore and prayer resources.

Worth a Click

The Catholic Summer Reading Program
Enjoy spending the summer months with a good book? You're not alone! CatholicReadingProgram.com offers resources for parish book clubs, a bulletin board for online book discussions and links to summer reading blogs. If you're part of a reading group already, tell others about it, or find a reading group to join. If you’re a blogger and want to share your summer reading experience, get your posts listed on CatholicReadingProgram.com. Also, be sure to check out the suggested Catholic books for kids and teens.

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