CiD

Be the first to know the next Archbishop of St. Louis

The Archdiocese of Saint Louis is pleased to announce that you can be one of the first to know the name of the next Archbishop of Saint Louis, when he is announced!

Sign up to receive a text message announcing the new Archbishop. You’ll know within 5 minutes of Rome’s announcement.

Tags: Catholic media, communication, evangelization, text messaging

More Catholics embrace online social networking

In this Our Sunday Visitor article, CiD member Dr. Sebstian Mahfood offers netiquette tips for Catholics involved in social networking:

• Remember the human. That sounds basic, but is often forgotten. “All technologies are extensions of the persons who use them,” Mahfood told OSV. “Behind every communication is a real human person who is not only an individual substance of a rational nature, but is also a being created in the image and likeness of Christ.”
• Keep Christ at the center of any social network that is developed. Mahfood explained: “The temptation exists in our social interactions to bracket Christ when we perceive a good or a value that we would like to pursue in the satisfaction of our own desires. The advice is traditional, but meaningful for online interactions — never do anything or say anything online that you cannot share with the Eucharist.”
• Begin all real-time chats with prayer “for the good of the community gathered and the participation of the Holy Spirit,” he continued.
• Apply established “netiquette” rules to the social networks that are created. “People who find themselves the hosts of very large social networking sites will not only want to follow established standards but promote them actively as a form of evangelization and prayer,” Mahfood said.

For those in the St. Louis area, Dr. Mahfood will address CYBERETHICS:
Our Relationships in Cyberspace on Thursday, February 19, 2009.

Tags: cyberethics, evangelization, events, internet, technology

New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship

Pope Asks Young Catholics to Use Technology to Share Their Faith

The theme for the 2009 World Communications Day, which will be celebrated May 24 in most dioceses, is “New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship.”

Releasing the message—which included e-mailing it directly to 100,000 young Catholics around the world and asking them to forward it or post it on their Web sites—the Vatican also announced that it would take a further step into the digital age by making video of the pope available on YouTube, a video-sharing Web site.

read entire article

Tags: Catholic media, communication, evangelization

Internet: a New Forum for Proposing the Gospel

The Internet causes billions of images to appear on millions of computer monitors around the planet. From this galaxy of sight and sound will the face of Christ emerge and the voice of Christ be heard? For it is only when his face is seen and his voice heard that the world will know the glad tidings of our redemption. This is the purpose of evangelization. And this is what will make the Internet a genuinely human space, for if there is no room for Christ, there is no room for man. Therefore, on this World Communications Day, I dare to summon the whole Church bravely to cross this new threshold, to put out into the deep of the Net, so that now as in the past the great engagement of the Gospel and culture may show to the world “the glory of God on the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). May the Lord bless all those who work for this aim.

Message of the Pope John Paul II, 36th World Communications Day, Sunday, May 12, 2002
Internet: A New Forum for Proclaiming the Gospel

Tags: evangelization