Q U I C K S C A N

Parish Site of the Month
Worth a Click

The appeal isn't hard to understand. Some saints' lives are full of drama, surprise and conflict: St. Augustine overcoming the sins of his youth or St. Thomas Becket slain in the Canterbury cathedral. Others offer a quiet example of the reward for following God's will: St. Therese of Lisieux's short life of prayer, service and illness became an inspiration and made her only the third female Doctor of the Church.

Those of us in Web ministry ignore the saints at our own peril. They are a powerful way to reach seekers and committed Catholics alike and to remind our audience that we are all called to be saints. The upcoming feasts of All Saints (November 1) and All Souls (November 2) are opportunities to highlight the role that saints play in our Catholic faith. Some ideas for incorporating saints into your ministry:

1. If you run a parish site, be sure you have a page describing who your parish is named for (if indeed it's named for a saint). It seems obvious, but many people know little about the saints for whom their churches are named.

2. Consider a feature for your patron saint's feast day, especially if your parish or school has a celebration for it.

3. Use resources such as AmericanCatholic.org's "Saint of the Day" or "All Hallows Eve" to give visitors a daily reason to visit your site. Click the "Saint of the Day" or "All Hallows Eve" button at right above to find html code for your site in our webmaster's section at AmericanCatholic.org.

4. Use the most popular feast days—such as Nicholas, Francis and Patrick—as a way to attract people to your site. Advertise feast-day features in your bulletin to drive traffic there.

5. Offer interactive tools featuring saints to allow visitors to evangelize to others. Saints' e-cards from CatholicGreetings.org are one way to promote this.

If you've come across other inventive ways to use stories of the saints in your Web ministry, we'd love to hear about them and pass them on to others. Just send your ideas to juliez@americancatholic.org, and we'll include them in a future edition.

In the meantime, Happy All Saints and All Souls Day, and God bless!

Julie Zimmerman
Managing Editor
AmericanCatholic.org and sister sites

Next month: The Incarnation and the Internet (by John Bookser Feister)

Parish Site of the Month

St. Matthew, Archdiocese of Los Angeles
St. Matthew in Long Beach, California, speaks its parishioners' language. Or languages, to be more exact: everything on the site is side-by-side in English and Spanish, down to the bulletin announcements, prayer intentions and parish directory. In addition to being bilingual, the site has a lovely, simple look and is easy to navigate. The only drawback: several important sections have yet to be completed.

Worth a Click

EVENTS
The Perpetual Web Rosary
The addition of five new mysteries to the Rosary has put this ancient prayer in the spotlight. This site encourages Web users from all over the world to pray the Rosary together. Click on each bead and the appropriate mystery and prayer pops up. If you can't make it through the whole thing, the next visitor can pick up where you left off. English, Latin, French and Spanish versions available. It's not high-end art, but it's an interesting interactive concept.

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