When I launched 40 Days of Catholic Media, I mentioned that Mondays would be for discussions on spiritual reading of interest to people using new media to spread the Gospel.  On January 24, Pope Benedict XVI released his message for the 45th World Communications Day, 2011 – Truth, Proclamation and Authenticity of Life in the Digital Age.  World Communications day has was instituted in Vatican II as a way for the church to reflect specifically on how the church can effectively use forms of mass communication.

Last year, I began, (but did not follow through) on a series of articles for Glorify-God.com reflecting upon the World Communications Day Letters through the years.  My first article,  Did the concept of “Social Media” originate in the Catholic Church? I discussed the origins of World Communication Day and how the church has been interested in the social implications of mass communication long before the Internet as we know it was developed.

There has already been some great discussion online about this year’s World Communications Day Letter.  Lisa Hendey has been keeping a directory of links and discussion about Truth, Proclamation And Authenticity Of Life In The Digital Age over at CatholicMom.com.  This is a great starting place for digging into the letter.

Before I share some of my thoughts about the letter itself, I want to discuss some of the tools I used to help me digest the letter.  Whenever a new (and often complex) message comes from the vatican, I run it through worldle.net.  This produces a word cloud in which the most frequently used words are largest.  This allows me to discern some of the common themes running through the document.  The word cloud for Truth, Proclamation and Authenticity of Life in the Digital Age is at the top of this post.

Next I cut and pasted the document into Google docs and I highlighted and annotated the document using different colors and font sizes.  A neat feature of Google Docs is that I can embed these notes right here in the blog page by clicking on the prominent ‘Share’ button at the top right of the Google Docs page and selecting ‘Publish to Web’.  This gives me a number of options including a handy embed code for the document.

Here is my version of the letter after I had marked it up.

Finally just a few of my observations on the Holy Father’s letter.

1)   Once again the Holy Father is calling on Catholics to reach out on what he calls ‘the Digital Continent’.

The new technologies are not only changing the way we communicate, but communication itself, so much so that it could be said that we are living through a period of vast cultural transformation. This means of spreading information and knowledge is giving birth to a new way of learning and thinking, with unprecedented opportunities for establishing relationships and building fellowship.

…It follows that there exists a Christian way of being present in the digital world: this takes the form of a communication which is honest and open, responsible and respectful of others. To proclaim the Gospel through the new media means not only to insert expressly religious content into different media platforms, but also to witness consistently, in one’s own digital profile and in the way one communicates choices, preferences and judgements that are fully consistent with the Gospel, even when it is not spoken of specifically.

I would like then to invite Christians, confidently and with an informed and responsible creativity, to join the network of relationships which the digital era has made possible. This is not simply to satisfy the desire to be present, but because this network is an integral part of human life.

These are just a few of my reflections upon the letter for the 45th World Communications Day, 2011 – Truth, Proclamation and Authenticity of Life in the Digital Age.

Here is another perspective:

On his first reading of the letter, Owen from luminousmiseries :( and Drawn to Catholicism seriously considered withdrawing from the online sphere but fortunately he has returned to both blogs with a new vigor, and he has been active in our 40 days of Catholic Media discussions here.

Now it’s your turn.

• What are some of the insights you have drawn from this letter?

• Has it changed how you approach using new media and particularly social media?

• What are some questions you have for others about the message of this letter?

P.S.  Tomorrow is Catholic Media Promotion Day, an ideal spearheaded by Greg Willits to get online Catholics together to promote Catholic Media through blog comments, itunes reviews and even amazon reviews.   I had hoped to use Tech Tuesdays and Community Wednesdays during lent to discuss ways to use new media tools in novel ways to help foster community, online and off.   But here we go– Dive in and participate.  Tomorrow’s post will focus on the different ways we use technology tools to support each other online.  If you have an existing post on the topic, or you want to add your two bits to the main post to start off the discussion, let me know at catholicroundup@gmail.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:46 — 4.0MB)

On Thursday, I wrote about Catholic Media Promotion Day on SQPN.com.  Last night and this morning, I asked people to send me voicemails about their favorite Catholic blogs and podcasts.  I spliced these together into a promo for the March 15 Catholic Media Promotion Day.  Enjoy.

Here are the details of Catholic Media Promotion Day from my SQPN article.

I have never actually been inside Greg Willit’s head, a fact of which both of us are extremely grateful.  However, over the past years I think I have discerned a pattern to what happens when Greg gets a GOOD IDEA ™  about sharing his faith or about Catholic Media.

They seem to come to him in the night or in the early morning and he lets them rattle around a bit.  Then he gets on his Sirius XM radio show, The Catholics Next Door and starts discussing it with Jennifer and his audience.  If it is a REALLY GOOD IDEA ™ , then after the show he may immediately set up an event or webpage for that idea.

Thus were born the Atlanta Catholic Media Users Group and the #cathmedia twitter hashtag.

On Tuesday March 8, Greg had another REALLY GOOD IDEA ™:

• It started with a tweet at 9:15am :  “Sad. Not one Catholic podcast is currently listed in the top religious podcasts on iTunes. Could easily be fixed with + comments.”
• He followed this up a few minutes later with “May I suggest a Catholic New Media promotion Day? Let’s plan a day where we all focus on promoting your favorite Catholic blogs, podcasts, new media, and each other’s projects to the world.”
• Then of course, he discussed it on his show yesterday, settled on March 15 as the Day and immediately set up a Facebook Page for Catholic Media Promotion Day athttp://www.facebook.com/promotecatholicism.

So here’s the concept from the facebook page:

There’s Strength in Numbers. Let’s Get the Word Out On One Day About Catholic New Media. On March 15, 2011, everyone with a blog, podcast, or Facebook page should list their favorite 3 blogs, 3 podcasts, 3 other media, 3 random Catholic things online, and their own projects. Then, post the link to your list here on March 15th.

Additionally, to help get the word out, press are asked to write articles and press releases for this day. Lastly, on March 15th, go to iTunes and leave at least 3 positive written reviews for various Catholic podcasts and 3 positive written reviews for Catholic mobile applications.

As of this writing, the Facebook has nearly 500 ‘likes’ in less than 48 hours.  This is an excellent idea that allows people not only to share their favorite Catholic blogs, podcasts, websites, and apps– by submitting reviews on iTunes, it will help Catholic podcasters to reach larger audiences through higher rankings in the iTunes directory.

This is a great way to support Catholic media, so take some time on March 15 for Catholic Media Promotion Day.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:14 — 20.4MB)

I found myself awake very early this morning and I also found Jerry Kohlbrand aka Brojer from Bro Jer’s Blog and CatholicPreachy.com online.   Together we offered our morning prayer for everybody affected the Earthquake in Japan today.

Then we recorded a podcast discussion on one of his favorite sayings– “God does not call the qualified.  He qualifies the called.”  Check out his post: Serving Jesus is about being “callified” not “qualified”

Today,take some time to reflect on the dichotomy of striving for excellence in Catholic media and discerning a call to share our faith.  Please share your reflections on this conversation in the comments.

1. Send your feedback, podcast, blog and website promos ideas etc… on the blog at http://catholicroundup.com by email at  (catholicroundup@gmail.com) catholicroundup (at) gmail (dot) com or by calling 20-66-66-73-74 .

2. Theme Song: Lost in Christ (©) Bryan Murdaugh

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Hello Joe, Joe, Paul, Nancy, Daniel, Deacon Tom, Dee, Bob, Jerry, Sandy, Lisa, Maria, Lisa, Father Jim, Father Jay, Judy, Leticia, Sarah, Owen, Patrice, Edgar, Justin, and Gina, and everybody else joining us. I mention you by name because you have expressed an interest in joining in 40 Days of Catholic Media or I have invited you along for the ride. If I neglected your name, please give me a gentle nudge because it certainly wasn’t intentional. It is very important for me to remember that behind every Catholic blog, podcast, book, etc… is a committed person or team of people.

One of the many wonderful things about the Internet is that it changed the broadcast paradigm from a one to many monologue and replaced it with a two way one to one conversation.   Well, it replaced it with many, many simultaneous two way conversations in many different places.

I am experiencing this already at the beginning of this 40 Day journey.   For the past week, I’ve been gathering a community of Catholic new media types (what do we call ourselves anyway?) to grow together in our faith and explore our use of  New Media to spread the Good News.  I have had conversations about this over email, my personal facebook profile, the Catholic Roundup facebook profile, Skype IM, Skype voice, phone, blog comments, blog comments on other blogs, blogposts on Catholic Roundup and on other people’s blog , chatango, one very memorable vlog (Thanks Owen), ustream, face to face, and I can’t quit recall but I believe a carrier pigeon might also have been involved.

The internet facilitates conversations through a myriad of means but they can also get fragmented and hard to follow.   For the purposes of our ongoing discussion, I am intending to primarily use the blog comments here at catholicroundup and the Catholic Roundup Facebook Page.  Keep in mind that both these pages are publicly accessible (and indexed by google .   If the group wishes or the need arise, we could switch some of our discussions to an email list or more private forum, or even skype conferences, but it comes at the cost of increased “friction”– it is more effort for people to participate in the conversation.

Today,  some of our conversation seems to be going on at Paul’s blog, Sober Catholic, and at Owen’s blog, Drawn to Catholicism. Head on over to their sites for their perspective on 40 Days of Catholic Media. Paul is seeking out more Catholics in recovery to grow his community, and he hopes that our tech discussions can include a primer on how to use FTP.  Owen is reviving his drawn to catholicism blog (YAY), and luminous miseries blog and much like me is seeking purpose, direction and listening for God’s will in his new media ministry.

On Skype, Daniel mentioned that he is seeking ideas for reaching out to parishes with our new media skills.   Funny you should mention that Daniel, I have asked the Sandy, who is the secretary and catechist at our parish to read along with the blog and facebook page during Lent and to join in the discussion if she wishes.  Some of you may want to invite your parish secretaries to check out our discussions here.

Joe (and also my spiritual director) have both stressed the need for catechesis and spiritual reading during this 40 days.  I agree, but it is not my forte.  We will begin with a discussion of the Holy Father’s World Communication Day letter on Monday.  After that, I rely on the strengths of some of you to provide some blog posts, discussion starters, ideas for online books or teachings we can study together etc…

God bless everyone.  I am excited about this journey.

Sean