More news coming your way

Your archdiocesan newspaper is changing formats in south Florida, with daily, weekly publications on the Web, and monthly in print.

Posted: 10.23.09

My dear friends,

The Florida Catholic you have come to know is changing its format, at least in Miami.

At the end of this month, the Archdiocese of Miami will no longer be part of the statewide publication that is currently mailed to your home every other week.

The Florida Catholic will continue to exist, but in south Florida it will do so in the form of a monthly publication that is delivered in bulk to the parishes and distributed for free to Massgoers.

You may or may not know that your pastors were paying for most of the 50,000 or so newspapers that were mailed out every other week to south Florida Catholics. Unfortunately, in these difficult financial times, the cost of this Florida Catholic quota – the share of subscriptions each parish had to pay for – was more than many parishes could bear.

So we decided to eliminate the quota. At the same time, I asked our communications department to think creatively and come up with less expensive ways to continue to deliver Catholic news and information to our Catholic households.

I think Mary Ross Agosta and her team have come up with some wonderful ideas, primarily by harnessing the power of the Internet. The Web today is a very cost-effective alternative to old-fashioned printing and mailing, where costs have gone up exponentially in recent years. By using the Web, the archdiocese actually can deliver more news to you, on a timelier basis, than was ever possible with a print publication.

So this is what you can expect beginning in November:

• Daily local news updates on our Web site, www.miamiarch.org. We will be posting archdiocesan news and feature stories almost as soon as they happen. You also will be able to submit your own stories, photos and videos for posting on our Web site, in much the same way you now submit event notices and responses to our “Let’s Talk” blog.

• Daily news stories from Catholic News Service, which is affiliated with the U.S. bishops’ conference, and international news stories from Zenit, an agency specializing in coverage of the Holy Father, the Vatican and events of interest to the Church. (Its motto is “The world seen from Rome”). RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds will be available for all these services, including our local news. (I don’t know exactly how these work, but I am told they allow people who sign up for the feeds to be notified whenever a new story is posted; the notifications can be sent to mobile phones or computers.)

• A weekly four-page publication containing my column in English and Spanish, a roundup of upcoming events in parishes throughout the archdiocese and a local news or feature story. This weekly publication (in the form of a PDF file) will be posted on the Web site and sent to pastors, who can re-post it on their parish Web sites; print out copies and insert them in their parish bulletin or distribute them along with their parish bulletin; or post them on bulletin boards around the church. Individuals who prefer to read their news on paper rather than on a screen also will be able to download the PDF each week and print it out on their home computers.

• A monthly, eight- to 16-page Florida Catholic which will be mailed in bulk to the parishes for distribution at Masses on the third Sunday of each month. This newspaper will contain news and features that are less time-sensitive and more informational and educational in terms of Church teachings and practices. I am grateful to my fellow bishops and the board of the Florida Catholic for allowing us to continue to use the name, as our relationship with them has changed but not ended.

All of these services and publications are being provided free to the pastors and our Catholic faithful. All we are urging pastors to do is to promote both the Web-based and print publications in their bulletins and Mass announcements each week.

Obviously, these services will continue to cost money, although far less than a biweekly print publication. The reason we are making this commitment is that we want more than ever to keep Catholics informed about what is going on in parishes across south Florida and in the Church around the world. We want to get our “good news” out without going through the filter of the secular media, which often covers bad or sensational news but rarely writes about all the good things being done by Catholic churches and their people.

We also want to hear from you, to know what you are doing, and to provide a forum for Catholics to speak to one another on our Web site. That is already happening to some extent on our current Web site, as individuals can announce events that will be taking place in their parishes and schools, as well as respond to our “Let’s Talk” bloggers. Our Web team, Atimo.us, is developing a similar system that will allow readers to post comments about local stories and eventually “rate” how much they like a particular article or video that is posted on our Web site.

Some of these Web-based novelties might take some of our older, more faithful readers, a while to get used to, and I understand perfectly how you feel. I am absolutely not “tech-savvy.” I still like “snail mail” and the old-fashioned notion of thinking before typing a reply and hitting “send.” But I cannot deny that the Internet is changing the way we do things, the way we see the world and the way we communicate with each other. (Even I have learned how to “Google” the Web for information and read news on my computer; in fact, this summer I read Pope Benedict’s most recent encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” online.)

In his 2009 message for World Communications day, the pope spoke precisely about this digital revolution and cited “the extraordinary potential of the new technologies.” Acknowledging the future, he addressed his message, in particular, to today’s “digital” generation, urging them to “to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent.’”

As Pope Benedict wrote: “Human hearts are yearning for a world where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion. Our faith can respond to these expectations. … May you become its heralds!”

I take the opportunity to echo his words and pray that our redesigned Web site and Web-based news distribution will appeal to our young people and help them keep in closer touch with their fellow Catholics in south Florida. May all of us learn to use these new technologies for the greater glory of God and the spreading of the good news in the world.