As Catholics, we are still figuring out exactly how to live out our faith online. It’s a new frontier. How do we engage the culture? What is appropriate to say here and there and how? How do we open people’s minds to the intelligibility of the faith? How do we win hearts, not just arguments?

The New Evangelization calls for New Apologetics. This newness is, in part, simply applying the same old principles of our faith to the emerging and novel format of today. But it’s also pausing to reflect on what ways we may be going astray.

With just about everything, we tend to naturally swing back and forth between extremes over time. It is the guidance of the Church, Scripture and Tradition which...READ MORE

Carson Weber is the Associate Director for New Media Evangelization for the Diocese of Sacramento. A “New Media Evangelization” department is not something found in most dioceses. But, in time, most every diocese will have one. Or at least I hope so.

But for now, Carson is really helping to set the mold for the type of work he’s doing in the Church. And from what I’ve seen, he’s doing a great job of it.

In addition to being a product of Texas A&M University, Franciscan University and the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, he also designs websites, hosts podcasts and does speaking engagements.

One of his particularly significant projects is The Understanding the Scriptures Podcast -...READ MORE

I had the pleasure of being invited down to Albany, GA this week to visit the set for the new movie, Courageous. I got to check out the filming, meet some of the crew, preview some clips, make some new friends and spend some quality time with a lot of wonderful people. I also ate a lot of really good southern comfort food. It was southern hospitality at its best.

If you are unfamiliar with Courageous (the movie), I recommend checking out Tim Drake’s blogs from earlier this week. He documented his similar experience on the set very well, so I won’t recount it all here. But it’s from the makers of Fireproof (the #1 independent film of 2008), Sherwood Pictures, the movie-making ministry of...READ MORE

After profiling the different types of blog commenters recently, I had some requests for advice on how to be the good kinds of commenters, rather than the bad.  Here are some dos and don’ts that might help:

1) Be charitable. If you are not making a comment out of love, you have no reason to make it.

2) Do not comment when you’re angry. You’ll probably regret it and won’t be able to undo it.  Anything good to say will still be good in a few hours when the anger has worn off a bit.

3) If you quote part of the article or another comment, make it a short quote. Do not copy and paste huge chunks of the article or other comments into new comments. If we need to reread the post or another...READ MORE

Thomas Peters is the American Papist. Or maybe he’s an American Papist. Either way, he is not your average Catholic. He’s been blogging about important issues facing Catholic Americans since way back in 2005. And, even though he’s still a young man, that makes him a seasoned pro in the blogging world.

His popular blog, American Papist, is one of my daily staples. If there is something important going on that applies to Catholic Americans, he’s usually talking about it. And he’s developed quite the following over the years and has put together an impressive resume doing so:

Thomas Peters is a young Catholic with graduate degrees in theology, who works in Washington DC.

He has been seen...READ MORE

We funny little humans are far too often far too impressed with ourselves. We look around at all of our wonderful, technologically advanced toys and think very highly of ourselves. It smacks of Babel.

People from all over the world are unifying, using common language, and building something more impressive than the world has ever seen. But are we building it for the worship and praise of Yahweh? Not a chance. We’re building it for ourselves. We are building it to have our own “top in the heavens.” We build to make our name famous. It’s all about us and what we are capable of. All of this amazing technology, “progressive” ideas and philosophical “enlightenment” has freed us of gravity....READ MORE

Now for the exciting part-2 conclusion of last week’s surprisingly controversial post: 10 types of blog comments (Part 1). Make sure you read Part 1 first to get caught up.

I had a lot of excellent feedback on part 1, including some very funny comments. So, first of all, thank you for being such great contributors to the topic. We also had some suggestions/criticisms for a few “types of commenters” that I missed.

One suggestion was the “Clown,” who just tries to be funny and sometimes randomly silly. But I think the “Clown” comment can easily fit under either Contributor, Non-contributor, or Encourager. A Clown is just funny in the process…which is usually a bonus. There’s also the...READ MORE

Spirit Juice Studios. They rock. Ever since I first saw their work I’ve been impressed. And they truly “get it” when it comes to using new media in the New Evangelization.

A bit about them from their website:

“Spirit Juice Studios is a multi-disciplinary design studio comprised of individuals working mainly in the fields of web, print, motion design, and audio production. Based on the same idea of contemporary design for sorely-lacking Catholic entities, the studio was founded by Rob Kaczmark and Bernie Czerwinski in the summer of 2007.”

It’s refreshing to find more and more media companies in the Catholic world doing truly professional work. As Catholics, we have the best subject...READ MORE