Web Catholic-Catholic Webmasters Blog

Pope’s U.S. Pilgrimage, Pentecost, Mother’s Day, Mary

With the Easter liturgical season in full flower in the Church, St. Anthony Messenger Press’ AmericanCatholic.org has a variety of resources to help your Web site be a more resource-rich place for the Catholic community.

Pope Benedict XVI brings the international presence of the Church to American shores April 15 – 20. He will be only the second pope in history to meet with the president at the White House and the third to address the U.N. General Assembly. The Holy Father also will visit ground zero, join with Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Hindu leaders in interfaith and ecumenical meetings, and celebrate a closing pilgrimage Mass to a packed Yankee Stadium. AmericanCatholic.org will be the place to find up-to-the-minute staff, news service and feature coverage of the pope’s steps and remarks. The button we’ve provided for your Web site will allow you to make the link to our free section.

While we have just experienced the most sacred of Christian celebrations, the sacred Triduum, leading to the celebration of our Lord’s Resurrection, the journey toward the wisdom found in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost continues. You can help visitors to your site understand the meaning of the Easter season, the feast of the Ascension and the power of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Just link to our “From Easter to Pentecost” feature.

Just around the corner is one of the most popular days of the year to send a greeting card—Mother’s Day. We have e-cards from Catholic Greetings that you can link to from your site. Place links to our Mother’s Day e-cards on your site, and help your visitors celebrate and honor the nurturing and faith-filled roles played by mothers everywhere.

Finally, May is the month of Mary, the Mother of God. AmericanCatholic.org has been covering the 150th anniversary of Mary's first apparition to St. Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes. Link your visitors to our material about the healings at this place of pilgrimage, what the Bible says about the Blessed Virgin Mary, what the Church believes about Our Lady and how Catholics can honor her.

These are certainly busy times! You can help your visitors sort through them with the depth and breadth found here at AmericanCatholic.org.

Peace and all good.

Mark Lombard
Managing editor, AmericanCatholic.org

St. Raphael Catholic Church (Diocese of Joliet)

This simple site does a great job of keeping the homepage fresh and relevant. Near the top, important and timely links are provided: current week’s happenings, Sunday bulletin, weekly meditations, ministry schedules and more. Scroll a bit to learn about upcoming events, and browse the site’s main navigation to learn about the church’s mission, various ministries and religious-education programs. St. Raphael provides a lot of information about the church’s adult faith-formation program and liturgy, but the site’s text is easy to read and digest. Follow a link on the homepage to the associate pastor’s blog, where you can find Father Pat Mulcahey’s reflections throughout the Easter season, homilies and links to scripture and countless Catholic sites and blogs.              

The Pope Benedict XVI Fan Club: Benedict in America Blog

In just days the pope will be making his trip to the U.S, an event the Pope Benedict Fan Club has been anticipating for months. (The papal visit blog has archives reaching back to August of last year!) You can find details about the pope’s visit (including unofficial events like the party to celebrate the Benedict’s 81st birthday), commentary from Catholic, interfaith and political leaders, and links to blogs, podcasts, news articles—just about everything related to the papal trip. While you’re at the site, be sure to check out FAQs, a pope forum and the fan club’s Benedict Blog, which has archives starting from the Holy Father’s first days as leader of the Church.

March Saints, Easter and the Pope’s U.S. Visit

Holy Week is just around the corner, but first, the Irish and the Italians have some celebrating to do! In many locations, St. Patrick will be celebrated on March 14 this year, followed by St. Joseph the next day (Palm Sunday is on the 16th). We have e-cards from Catholic Greetings that you can link to from your site. St. Patrick’s Day is one of the most popular days for Catholic Greetings. Place links to our St. Patrick and St.  Joseph e-cards on your site, and help your visitors celebrate their faith-filled heritage,  even as they enter into this holiest of weeks.

Soon we start the most sacred of Christian celebrations,  the sacred Triduum, which starts with Holy Thursday with its institution of the Eucharist. The Triduum continues with the celebration of our Lord’s Passion and death on Good Friday and concludes with the celebration of the Resurrection, beginning with the Easter Vigil. You can help visitors to your site understand the meaning of the Church’s liturgy with a link to our Easter feature.

Did you know that the pope is coming to the United States a few weeks after Easter? April 15-20, Pope Benedict XVI will be in Washington, D.C., and New York City. His trip will also include a speech at the United Nations. We’ll have coverage updated on our site leading up to and during the visit, in the forms of print and audio reports from St. Anthony Messenger editors Susan Hines-Brigger, from D.C., and yours truly, from New York. We’re providing a button for your Web site to make the link to our free section.

Finally, with the election year warming up to be one of the most interesting in decades, we’ve put together news stories about Catholics and the election. We also have a guide to help voters bring their faith to the ballot box, courtesy of Bishop John McCormack of Manchester, N.H. No candidates are endorsed or shunned; but guidance from Catholic social teaching is offered, along with stories as they come to us from Catholic News Service.

Have a blessed Easter!

John Feister

Editor, AmericanCatholic.org

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church (Diocese of Charlotte)

Here’s a parish site that’s ready for Holy Week and Easter. The online home of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church stays up-to-date with announcements and events, links to the weekly bulletin, parish calendar and Mass readings, and an event schedule for Holy Week. An attractive Flash presentation provides the site with a lively front door and complements the color scheme, but doesn’t overshadow the important links mentioned above. Last but not least, a nice feature at StACharlotte.com is “Ask Father Forum,” where visitors can anonymously share faith-related questions and problems.

Living Our Faith

Living Our Faith, developed by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, “invites people to meet Christ,” “teaches people to know Christ” and “inspires people to live Christ.” Highlights not to be missed include Catholic trivia questions, “Twenty Something” (a column for young adults) and a weekly reflection by the archbishop. Much of the site’s content is intended to help Catholics in Milwaukee. However, there’s plenty of inspiration for the rest of us. It’s not too late to read “40 Ways to Improve Your Lent.” And be sure to check back for ways to improve and enrich your Easter celebration.

A Busy Season

This is a busy season for parish Webmasters! Lent started at its earliest possible date, barely after the Christmas rush, it seemed. With election season coming into full swing, Catholic voters are going to be searching the Web for answers about this important penitential season. And let’s not forget that Pope Benedict is coming to the United States in April! It’s going to stay busy for a while.

We want to remind you of what AmericanCatholic.org offers this Lent to link to on your parish Web site. First, of course, is our annual feature, “Lent: Call to Conversion,” which has been active since just before Ash Wednesday. As in the past, we offer suggested daily activities, weekly radio homilies, news and inspiration. This year, Father Greg Friedman, O.F.M., has added a warm welcome message that you can check out on YouTube, along with other seasonal videos. Link to it from your site using our attractive link button.

A highlight of our Lent program has become Lenten Radio Retreat, a Catholic Communication Campaign project that features audio homilies by U.S. bishops—six in English, six in Spanish. It’s available at FranciscanRadio.org in both streaming audio and podcasts. We present bishops from all over the country—a very talented group of radio preachers “from the heart of the Church.”

There are two new features in development that you’ll hear more about next month. One focuses on the upcoming elections, specifically on how our faith informs key themes in our national political debate. This will surely be on everyone’s mind between now and November. Also, we’re making plans for a special news section covering the papal visit to Washington, D.C. and to New York, April 15-20. We will have correspondents at both events and good backgrounders in March.

Meanwhile, let’s pray that this Lent be a season of renewal, of deepening faith, for all of us in Web ministry and for the people we serve.

The National Shrine of the Cross in the Woods (Diocese of Gaylord)

Visit CrossintheWoods.com to learn about “one of Michigan’s best known and most visited shrines.” The material under the “About the Shrine” link in the dropdown menu is definitely worth checking out. Start by exploring the shrine’s history and the artists involved in its creation, and by reading a timeline of various milestones and events. Then, take several 360-degree virtual tours of the church, its shrines and its gardens. In addition to basic information, like Mass times, bulletins and staff photos, there are also areas for submitting online prayer requests, for doing some online shopping at the gift shop and for subscribing to the print newsletter.

Lourdes 2008: Official Site for the 150th Anniversary of the Apparitions

February 11, 2008, marked 150 years since Mary’s first apparition to St. Bernadette Soubirous. Log on to Lourdes2008.com and learn how you can join Catholics all over the world in celebrating Lourdes, a place of pilgrimage, healing and faith. For people planning a pilgrimage, the site offers information about available guides, priests and medical personnel, as well as a schedule of events and helpful publications. There’s also a lot for those of us celebrating Lourdes while staying at home. Check out a video welcome from Father Martin Moran, Lourdes’ English-language coordinator, and browse the multimedia space, complete with Web radio and television features and a collection of photos.

Lent 2008

Wow! Doesn’t it seem as if Christmas is barely over, yet Ash Wednesday and Lent are upon us? That’s because Easter, based on the cycles of the moon since ancient times, falls on a different date each year. This year is the earliest possible Easter; hence the early beginning of Lent. It happens every so often, but well-prepared parish Web sites can handle it!

Ash Wednesday is February 6 this year, just two weeks away. Perhaps we’ll see among our parishioners and beyond a heightened awareness of Christian practice, and certainly a lot of questions about the Catholic faith (like, “Why is Lent so early?”).

That questioning becomes an opening to talk about what Lent should mean and be for all of us. As you no doubt know, Lent is a six-week period for all of us to reflect more deeply upon the saving presence of Jesus in our lives and to weed out everything that stands between us and Jesus. It is the time of preparation for newcomers to enter the Church and has roots in the training of catechumens for initiation. You can read some nice, easy-to-understand Catholic teaching about that in our newly updated Lent feature. I would encourage you to study some of the articles and to place our free graphic links to the with solid Catholic catechesis from our ministry set at the heart of the Church with all of those articles as well as a calendar of suggested Lenten practices to help your visitors stay focused.

This year, we are offering again our Franciscan Radio program, Lenten Radio Retreat, a project of the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Communication Campaign. Each half-hour webcast (available free for local radio broadcast) features one of 12 bishops (six English-speaking, six Spanish-speaking) reflecting on the Sunday gospels. Our American Catholic Radio also has a fresh show each week during Lent with solid inspiration and information. For example, our Ash Wednesday show includes an interview from St. Peter’s in the Loop Parish in Chicago, which has a huge distribution of ashes. All of it (except the ashes!) can be downloaded for mp3 players. Links for both Lenten Radio Retreat and American Catholic Radio are available to enrich your site during the entire season of Lent.

By the middle of next week (a week before Ash Wednesday) we'll be offering a video introduction to Lent by our own Franciscan Father Greg Friedman. (You can see our Advent/Christmas clips there at this writing.) These new Lenten clips will be added to our growing ministry at YouTube. We’ll be linking directly over to it—you can, will make your site more lively and inspiring with solid, trustworthy Lenten features—just in time for Ash Wednesday!