Catholic Tech Talk

“When the smoke goes up, you’ll know what’s going down.”  If you want to be notified via email or text message as soon as the white smoke appears, sign up on Pope Alarm, a service provided by Focus. You can also follow Pope Alarm on Facebook and Twitter. Such a great idea!

I thought I’d share a few great resources I’ve come across relating to Pope Benedict XVI’s departure as pontiff. Please add any you’ve seen in the comments!

New to Catholic Tech Talk, we’ll be featuring an educational, inspirational, or entertaining Catholic video each week!

The ashes we’ll wear tomorrow will be an outward sign of penance and contrition. As an outward sign during Lent online, I created a graphic to replace my Facebook and Google+ profile pictures with. I’d love to see other people use this as well—let’s create awareness online and remind ourselves and our Christian brothers and [...]

Liturgical Publications Inc and Catholic Tech Talk are pleased to announce the second annual 2013 Catholic Parish Website of the Year contest.

What kind of people would it be filled with? Would they be kind? In a previous blog post of mine, Dr. Caroline Cerveny, SSJ-TOSF, wrote a comment that resonated with me, “We are in a new day and age where we all need to be good Digital Citizens. We need to be clearer with one [...]

Unfortunately we live in a society where making fun of Christians, and specifically Catholics, is widely accepted. It’s common to turn on TV or go online just to hear or read some snide remark about Christians. So what do we do? We grow thick skin, we turn the other cheek, and we love them anyway. [...]

Whenever I think of Advent, I’m instantly reminded of the Advent prayer services we would have as a family around the kitchen table. We would take turns reading aloud from a prayer book—using only our wreath’s candlelight—and I, being the youngest, usually got to light and blow out the candles. Not only were our services [...]

I never like turning on the news on Black Friday. It’s always strange watching video clips of hoards of shoppers waiting in line and trampling into stores while Christmas music is playing in the background. Though I try to reconcile it by thinking that consumer spending drives the economy and thousands of employees are probably [...]

My sister made this artwork for her kitchen that features the Mother Teresa quote, “Do small things with great love.” They seem like the perfect words to live by at home, and at work. One of the things I’ve learned from being married is that when one person is crabby, it doesn’t take long for [...]

I’m not sure that after all of the tension, anger, and cynicism that accompanied this week’s presidential election that someone sat back and said, “That was a lot of fun. And I’m really going to miss the political ads.” Thankfully the following day, Pope Benedict XVI had a refreshing Papal Audience message: Rediscover a taste [...]

When it comes to our Year of Faith and online evangelization, I am endlessly caught between two assumptions; 1) the Internet can be a wonderful a catalyst for the New Evangelization, and 2), the Internet provides us an outlet to become counter-productive and waste time. Since we are indeed called to spread the Gospel in [...]

October 11th kicked off our Year of Faith, which marked the 50th anniversary of Vatican Council II, and also celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Two weeks later, I’ve seen some traction and discussion online, but yet the official Facebook fan page only has a little over 8,000 fans. The Vatican’s Year [...]

I recently re-watched one of my favorite documentaries, Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. The tagline for the movie sums it up pretty well, “If you go looking for some essential truth about the American South, you are going to have to look under the rocks and stones.” If you are a historian or fan of [...]

I recently came across an article about Sister Elaine Lachance, Vocation Director for the Good Shepherd Sisters of Quebec, and how she is using social media to spark interest and renew awareness in the religious lifestyle. I instantly loved her story. Growing up I attended weekend camps at a local convent, and as a child [...]

Web cams have changed the way we communicate – phone conferences at work have evolved into video conferences, and grandparents can talk to their grandchildren in real-time, rather than anxiously awaiting photos in the mail. Now video streaming technology allows us to view places and events we are unable to travel to in the comfort [...]

Using Instagram in Church Ministry As a new mom, I’ve been taking a crazy amount of pictures of my 4 month old son. Now that Instagram is available on Android phones, I’ve been using the App to add some filters to my photos before they get posted on Facebook or Twitter. The more I use [...]

When a parish is ready to start incorporating video footage into their homepage, it seems like their first instinct is to record the Sunday homily, post it to YouTube, and embed the video on their site. Personally I’m not a huge fan of this, I’d rather see videos that urge viewers to come to Mass—to [...]