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Christine Williams of The Anchor, the official Catholic Weekly Newspaper of the Fall River Diocese did a great job of summarizing key parts of the speech I delivered at the Catholic New Media Celebration in Boston:

 n the digital age, following in the footsteps of Jesus’ disciples means evangelizing a new, virtual continent.

“We must use every technological means at our disposal to even the playing field. We must blog the truth, podcast it, ‘friend’ it on Facebook and ‘retweet’ it. We must inhabit the digital continent and become as familiar with its terrain as the first Jesuit missionaries who mapped the new world,” Thomas Peters told fellow Catholic bloggers at the Catholic New Media Celebration on August 7.

Peters runs the popular online publication American Papist, a blog that is nearing its five millionth visit.

…
Thomas Peters said that in addition to communicating the faith, Catholics should use the web for activism. Though the number of faithful Catholics is relatively small, as a unified voice they can make a huge difference. He gave the example of a highly offensive advertisement put out by Kayak, a website for finding inexpensive plane tickets.

“It depicted two young repressed nuns who were apparently counting the days before they could escape their convent, and break out their tiny bikinis on a Caribbean beach,” he said.

He and those who follow his blog went to the company’s “virtual turf” and calmly explained why they would no longer use the service. Kayak pulled the ad that same day.

“Organizations listen to unified, numerous, principled criticism,” he said. “We need Catholics to live their faith, love their faith and be proud of it in public.”

The full text (and video) of the speech is available here.

Two weekends ago at the Catholic New Media Celebration in Boston Peter “DaTechGuy” Ingemi interviewed me after my participation in an afternoon panel discussion on Catholic blogging (video here).

I was a bit tired from a full day of Catholic networking, but it was still a fun interview and I enjoyed Peter’s questions. Apologies for the background noise, it should be possible to hear what I’m trying to say:

Visit DaTechGuy’s blog here.

This weekend I delivered a speech at the Catholic New Media Celebration in Boston. As promised, I am publishing the speech (broken into 10 easy sections) for those who heard it and asked for the text, and for thoughtful reading by my faithful papist readers.

The video of my presentation is available here on the SQPN website. I’ve also embedded it below:

 Here is the text of the speech….

Catholic Activism

I have also included (which I did not get to in my original speech), 5 Conversations/Goals for Catholic Activism. I believe we need to begin a national conversation about….

1. the responsibility to vote Catholic, and the responsibility of Catholic politicians to act Catholic in office
2. the fact that being truly Catholic means holding and believing everything the Church teaches with authority 
3. the fact that the Church is an uncompromising defender of life, and that Catholics provide concrete support to women who are tempted to seek an abortion
4. the fact that the Church is not anti-gay, that it loves persons with homosexual inclinations so much that it will not stand by as they ruin their lives and endanger their soul
5. the importance of the family, that the family is the fundamental building block of society and that government must protect and provide for the traditional family

I look forward to reading and hearing your reactions!

I’m having a busy day in DC so the update on my time at the CNMC this weekend will have to wait. This photo, however, which I spied on the Archdiocese of Boston’s Flickr feed, could not:

This is of course the AmP Facebook page, viewed on an Apple iPad. I told you those CNMC folks were a tech-savvy group of papists!

Last Friday at the Catholic New Media Celebration meet-and-greet, Matthew Warner was performing his best bilocation impression as he ran around the room taking photos of various folks in attendance. Props to Matt for the idea and staying up late the first night to get these photos online. Most of us had about five seconds to scrawl a message to the camera. Here’s mine:

And here are many, many more people in attendance. A more full report of the CNMC will follow!

I’m happy to announce that I’ll be attending this year’s Catholic New Media Celebration in Boston, August 6-7th.

I will be hosting a section at CNMC’s new feature this year: the blogging track. Other notable presenters include Lino Rulli, Fr. Roderick Vonhogen (of European podcasting fame), Mac and Katherine Barron (Catholic in a Small Town), Lisa Hendey and well, the list goes on and on. I’m especially excited for a panel discussion I will be having along with Jimmy Akin and Mark Shea. We will also receive remarks from the Archdiocese of Boston’s Sean Cardinal O’Malley.

Registration is full but sponsorships are still available. CatholicVote is a proud sponsor of CNMC 2010. If you are unable to attend you may follow the events on the CNMC Ustream and join the live chat room here (what else would you expect from a group of web-savvy papists?). Get your twitter decks ready, too!

I look forward to seeing you in Boston!

If you are looking for some weekend reading:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a set of guidelines for using social media, especially as social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter continue to gain in popularity.

“Social media are the fastest growing form of communication in the United States, especially among youth and young adults,” the guidelines say. “Our church cannot ignore it, but at the same time we must engage social media in a manner that is safe, responsible and civil.” (CNS)

You’re welcome to discuss your thoughts by replying to the AmP twitter feed, uploading a video to the AmP YouTube page, or posting on the AmP facebook wall, all while contemplating the photos on the AmP Flickr stream. ;-P

Facebook, as those with accounts on the popular social-networking website know, has a habit of suggesting people, politicians and organizations to connect with, based on shared interests.

I’m a “friend” of Planned Parenthood on Facebook in order to keep up on what they are doing. This is who Facebook suggested I “Like”, noting that many people who like Planned Parenthood, like him:

Supporters of Barack Obama, you’re in “fine” company.

A direct communique from the Papist Blogger-in-Chief:

The need to give the Internet a soul and humanize the dynamics of the digital world was at the heart of Pope Benedict XVI’s message Saturday to participants in a conference on modern means of mass communication.

… “Without fear we must set sail on the digital sea facing into the deep with the same passion that has governed the ship of the Church for two thousand years. Rather than for, albeit necessary, technical resources, we want to qualify ourselves by living in the digital world with a believer’s heart, helping to give a soul to the Internet’s incessant flow of communication”. (Vatican Radio)

There’s more, so follow the link!

If you have a Facebook account, did you know you can friend AmP? {link fixed!}

3,500+ papists already have!

Here are the top 5 countries AmP’s Facebook fans hail from:

1. United States
2. Canada
3. Philippines
4. United Kingdom
5. Italy

Top 5 American cities:

1. Washington
2. Houston
3. Chicago
4. New York
5. Atlanta/Dallas (tied)

Joining the fanpage is a wonderful way to keep up on AmP news through your Facebook friend feed, and interact more with the AmP community. I hope to see you over there soon!

And needless to say, if you have a Twitter account, you can also keep up AmP-worthy news and commentary as it happens!

Or should I say, totally cool:

The president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, shared this week that the Holy Father has an appreciation for new developments in technology and is comfortable surfing the internet and using email.

During an interview with the program �Studio Aperto� on the Italia 1 TV network, Archbishop Celli added, while the Pope doesn’t have a personal email address, he �sends his own personal emails. He does! He has great appreciation for new technology.�

The archbishop explained that while the Pope �cannot respond to the millions of messages that arrive in his inbox,� he is committed to �offering his prayers for all who write to him.�

�The internet is an excellent means of communication,� he continued. �We are seeking to be present where the people are, especially the youth.� (CNA)

I wonder if the Pope reads AmP?!

To my knowledge, we still don’t have a picture of Pope Benedict using a computer.

John Paul II preferred Dell laptops (with some papal customization, of course):

Totally 1337.

And the UK Tech Herald isn’t at all happy to hear it:

Breaking with its well-established tradition of remaining respectfully quiet on subjects that reach beyond the Bible, the good old Catholic Church has this week weighed in with its opinions on social networking. Surprisingly, the Church isn�t a fan and probably won�t be delivering bite-sized sermons on Twitter any time soon.

More pointedly, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has said social networking destinations such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo place a focus on forging potentially delicate �transient relationships� that can cause suicidal tendencies when and if they fracture.

The Church also said social networks place far too much emphasis and importance on how many friends a user can amass as opposed to the actual quality of any resulting friendships.

The criticism of social networking, which was offered up by Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols in UK broadsheet The Sunday Telegraph, comes following the suicide of 15-year-old high school student Megan Gillan, who took a fatal overdose of painkillers after being bullied online through Bebo.

The UK Tech Herald makes the (I think somewhat jerky move) of recommending readers join their Twitter and Facebook groups. Disagreeing with the criticism is one thing, but trying to be sneaky about promoting the opposite of what you think the Archbishop is recommending is not a very mature�response.