Yesterday, the Vatican’s Pontifical Councils for Culture and Social Communications invited bloggers for dialog on May 2, the day after the beatification of Pope John Paul II. Twitter and Facebook filled up with re-posts of the information, garnering some real interest from those bloggers in a position to go to to Rome, and a lot of wishful thinking from the rest of us.

The lucky few to attend will surely be blogging about it soon enough, and the Catholic Weekend crew is looking forward to hearing more about this historic meeting. In the meantime, the conversation continues among bloggers, including Rocco Palmo’s Whispers in the Loggia and Brian H. Gill’s A Catholic Citizen in America among others.

Check out the latest Catholic Weekend show, where Maria Johnson, Deb Schaben, and Capt. Jeff discuss this and more… listen here

The “Ask a Catholic Nun” Facebook page won a Reader’s Choice Award for Best Catholic Facebook page in an online contest sponsored by About.com’s Catholicism site.

The Reader’s Choice contest offered awards in a variety of categories including website, blog, Facebook page, twitter, iPhone app, and book among others.

The “Ask a Catholic Nun” Facebook page describes itself as “a place where Catholics and non-Catholics alike can ask questions concerning matters of faith, morality, and religious learning.  It is meant to be an informational site about the Catholic faith.”

After allowing their more than 12,000 fans to “Ask a Catholic Nun” questions about the faith, the hosts of the page, Sr. Susan James Heady and Sr. Marianne Lorraine Trouve, of the Daughters of St. Paul in collaboration with uCatholic.com,  provide thoughtful and faithful answers to the questions and bond their Facebook community together through prayers and friendship.

Sr. Susan Heady responded to the award announcement by saying in part, “Our hope is that the heightened publicity for our page will result in many more visitors and friends who will enjoy our posts and find answers to their questions.”

You can visit the “Ask a Catholic Nun” Facebook page by clicking here – “Ask a Catholic Nun”

The special Facebook and YouTube pages dedicated to the memory of John Paul II previously announced by the Vatican are now live.

New videos will be added to the YouTube channel on a daily basis. Both video and (subtitled) audio recordings will illustrate the pontificate of John Paul II year by year. The YouTube page can be found on this address: http://www.youtube.com/johnpaul2

The Vatican already had an official YouTube channel, with videoclips of talks and activities of Pope Benedict XVI: http://www.youtube.com/user/vatican

In a news report on Vatican Radio, the Vatican calls the Facebook Page concerning John Paul II in view of his Beatification “a novelty”:

“Unlike other initiatives already present on the Internet in various forms, initiatives by private individuals not associated with the Holy See,” the new Facebook page “carries the joint signatures of Vatican Radio and of the Vatican Television Centre. It has been approved by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and is, of course, open to all users of Facebook.”

“The general objective is to accompany the course of the Beatification using the instruments technology makes available, making full use of the resources at our disposal and, at least in part, of the vast documentary archives held by Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Centre.”

http://www.facebook.com/vatican.johnpaul2?sk=wall

Already more than 16,000 people ‘liked’ the new Facebook page; a number that will probably grow considerably over the next few days.

Today, March 15, is Catholic Media Promotion Day. Help make it a success by taking 5 minutes to participate:

List your favorite 3 blogs, 3 podcasts, 3 other media, 3 random Catholic things online, and your own projects on your blog, Facebook page or podcast.

Then, post the link to your list on the special Facebook page.

Go to iTunes and leave at least 3 positive written reviews for various Catholic podcasts and 3 positive written reviews for Catholic mobile applications.

Additionally, to help get the word out, press are asked to write articles and press releases for this day.

Have you participated? Let us know in the comments!

The Vatican is about to unveil a special Facebook page dedicated to the upcoming beatification of Pope John Paul II. The page will feature video highlights of the pontificate of John Paul II and will bring together ‘fans’ from all over the world.

Even though the Facebook page is primarily created to promote the upcoming beatification of Pope John Paul II on May 1, the page might very well continue beyond that date.

The creation of the Facebook page is part of a strong push by the Vatican to use social networks to spread its message.

According to Monsignor Paul Tighe (photo), secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, “Facebook doesn’t just share information, it creates community. People begin talking to each other and sharing ideas.”

The Vatican is also working on a much larger project: the launch, at Easter, of a new Vatican information web portal. According to Mgr. Tighe, the portal will be multimedia focused and specifically designed for social media use, so people can tweet, post and blog its contents onto their own friends and fans.

“A lot of our communications in the past was: I have a message. I broadcast it. TV takes it, radio takes it, newspaper takes it, and people passively receive it,” Tighe said. “With the Internet you have this possibility of getting people’s comments, getting their responses, and also of hearing their questions.”

Read more: ‘Friend the Pope? John Paul II gets Facebook page’

by Sean McGaughey

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.

Yesterday, 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 at http://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.

Greg Willits from The Catholics Next Door came up with a great idea: to make March 15 ‘Catholic Media Promotion Day’, a global call to action to use Facebook, Twitter and blogs to promote all the great Catholic content that is out there on the internet.

“There’s Strength in Numbers,” Greg says. “Let’s get the Word out on one day about Catholic New Media.”

Four steps to join in this common effort to promote Catholic new media:

1. 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.

2. Then, post the link to your list on March 15th on the special Facebook page created for the occasion.

3. Additionally, to help get the word out, press are asked to write articles and press releases for this day.

4. 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.

Link: http://www.facebook.com/promotecatholicism (don’t forget to ‘like’ the Facebook page!)

Help spread the word by blogging about this project and share your thoughts in the comments!

We have implemented the brand new Facebook comment system in addition to our existing WordPress comments. Facebook users can now easily leave a comment without having to submit their name and email address for every comment.

In addition, they can also chose to display the comments on their Facebook page, so that even more people can join in the conversation and read the original article.

A large portion of our traffic already comes from links on Facebook, so we know that a lot of you will be able to jump right in. And for everyone else, we still have our regular comment system as well.

What do you think of the new Facebook comments? Share your thoughts in.. the comments