evangelization

Well, this is refreshing news!

Apparently, the Catholics Come Home initiative in the Diocese of Green Bay has been a great success, and has encouraged a 7.4% increase in Mass attendance. This initiative has been centered around inviting back former Catholics, and increasing the faith and understanding of currently-active Catholics.

Eight months ago, the Diocese of Green Bay began airing television commercials for six weeks that invited Catholics to Come Home. This month, the diocese released survey findings that show Mass attendance increased an average of 7.4 percent after the commercials began to air.

In addition, more than 95 percent of parish leaders and parishioners reported that CCH had a positive influence on their lives.

For any program like this, two very important factors must be considered: 1. The welcoming attitude must saturate both diocesan and parish-based programs. 2. Truth/morals/teachings must never be compromised in welcoming new and former members into the Church—otherwise, those returning/joining will quickly see that we are duplicitous.

The program in Green Bay also had a very nice, accessible website, which most definitely helped those Catholics who were seeking more information! The website even seems to have been designed competently for SEO and cross-browser compatibility... go figure!

Congratulations to the Diocese of Green Bay! Hopefully, we can see a bit more of this in other dioceses, especially in the U.S.!

From Reuters:

VATICAN CITY - For God's sake, blog! Pope Benedict told priests on Saturday, saying they must learn to use new forms of communication to spread the gospel message.

In his message for the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Communications, the pope, who is 82 and known not to love computers or the Internet, acknowledged priests must make the most of the "rich menu of options" offered by new technology

"Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources — images, videos, animated features, blogs, Web sites — which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis."

Hat tip: The Forum

More sources for the story:

"Pope Benedict XVI urged priests over the weekend to use as many tools as possible to communicate with people, which includes the Internet and—yes—blogging. The Pope, who has been a bit of an Internet cudmudgeon, acknowledged that "the larger digital world represents a great resource for humanity" and said priests should take advantage of the tool before they become outdated."

Ars Technica: Pope: priests should blog, tweet the gospel too

CNET News: Pope asks priests to become more web savvy

The Next Web: Pope tells Priests: Start blogging

Mashable: Pope's Message to Priests: We Must Blog

ABC News: Pope to Priests: Go Forth and Blog

Read the Pope's entire speech for the World Day of Communications.

[Editor's note: Do you have any examples of other consecrated, ordained, or lay groups leveraging the power of their websites, YouTube channels, etc. to great effect? Please share them, and write as much as you can about them!]

One of the interesting orders I've run across is the Friars of the Immaculate. They did a live web broadcast from the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in May on a Marian Co-redemptorix conference (which I delightfully assisted). Here is the video of one of the speakers (Fr. Straub) from the conference. (I am hiding at the very beginning of the clip on the right 8-). They have their own YouTube channel and their outreach website, AirMaria, with regular webcasts. 

Our community is a Roman Catholic religious institute of pontifical rite. Our charism is founded on the spirituality of St. Maximilian Kolbe, which is both Franciscan and Marian.  The purpose of this site is to continue in the tradition of St. Maximilian and use the most modern means of communication to promote the welfare of souls by preaching the faith of the Church and making Our Lady known and loved.

A very traditional order with a very modern way of evangalizing! Deo Gratias!