Effective use of Internet key to church communications, says Osman

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Effective use of Internet key to church communications, says Osman

WASHINGTON (CNS) – As the U.S. bishops’ new communications chief, Helen Osman said one of her concerns will be how the church can use the Internet effectively to communicate with Catholics, especially the post-Vatican II generation.

She said she would like to see the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops become "more of a lead agent in how the church uses the Internet

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Maranatha said:
Effective use of Internet key to church communications, says Osman

WASHINGTON (CNS) – As the U.S. bishops’ new communications chief, Helen Osman said one of her concerns will be how the church can use the Internet effectively to communicate with Catholics, especially the post-Vatican II generation.

She said she would like to see the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops become "more of a lead agent in how the church uses the Internet

more
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She can start by revamping the search engine on the Catholic Bishops’ website. If you want to seach the bible, it’s easier to go to a protestant site, find the verse you’re looking for, then come back and pull up the NAB.
 
vern_humphrey said:
She can start by revamping the search engine on the Catholic Bishops’ website. If you want to seach the bible, it’s easier to go to a protestant site, find the verse you’re looking for, then come back and pull up the NAB.
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Yes, along with general Church document searches.
 
vern_humphrey said:
She can start by revamping the search engine on the Catholic Bishops’ website. If you want to seach the bible, it’s easier to go to a protestant site, find the verse you’re looking for, then come back and pull up the NAB.
Click to expand...
I agree with this.
 
Really, at the institutional level, the Church is typically pretty incompetant at offering much of anything ultimately worthwhile. What she’s be best advised to do, then, is direct people to various individual efforts of various Catholics, allowing the USCCB’s efforts to serve as a sort of portal, more than anything. But that would be risky, and probably won’t happen, because the bishops couldn’t exercize control over what others write and put out there. Not that they can manage to do the same with their own conference, though, ironically.
 
chicago said:
Really, at the institutional level, the Church is typically pretty incompetant at offering much of anything ultimately worthwhile. What she’s be best advised to do, then, is direct people to various individual efforts of various Catholics, allowing the USCCB’s efforts to serve as a sort of portal, more than anything. But that would be risky, and probably won’t happen, because the bishops couldn’t exercize control over what others write and put out there. Not that they can manage to do the same with their own conference, though, ironically.
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Yes, they are the same guys who wrote “A Call to Faithful Citizenship,” which contained this gem:
How will we address the tragic fact that more than 30,000 children die every day as a result of hunger, international debt, and lack of development around the world, as well as the fact that the younger you are, the more likely you are to be poor here in the richest nation on Earth?
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There used to be a little skit on “Sesame Street” that went, “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesnt’ belong.”

Apparently, the Bishops don’t watch “Sesame Street.”😃
 
vern_humphrey said:
She can start by revamping the search engine on the Catholic Bishops’ website. If you want to seach the bible, it’s easier to go to a protestant site, find the verse you’re looking for, then come back and pull up the NAB.
Click to expand...
And liberalise their permissions policy while they’re at it.
 
I have to agree with this commentary as well. More often you will plug something into the bishops site and you will pull movie reviews rather than a document on the topic you are searching for.Then you have to sift through pages of things before you find something that has an inkling of what originally came to the site to find out.

I know I am not computer saavy, but there must be a much easier way.
 
I got this response from her:
Dear Mr. Humphrey,
Thank you for your kind note and encouragement. I share your frustration regarding the USCCB Web site, as does almost everyone I know! It will definitely be a top priority for me when I move to the USCCB on Aug. 1. Please do be patient, however, as I know it will take awhile to change things.
blessings,
Helen Osman
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So if all of us clearly understand these problems, why hasn’t whoever is presently responsible done anything to address the situation? Do they somehow NOT know? Did they not have the resources or ability?
 
chicago said:
So if all of us clearly understand these problems, why hasn’t whoever is presently responsible done anything to address the situation? Do they somehow NOT know? Did they not have the resources or ability?
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It could be that the people in charge of the web site don’t have the technical skills to keep it updated, or to create an effective search engine for it. It’s also possible that work that should be full time paid work is being done by volunteers on an ad hoc basis.

it’s also possible that the people in charge of the web site aren’t web users themselves, and have no idea who uses it, or how they are approaching it.
 
Wow, that’s something to look forward to if that change is possible. See prayers really do work.🙂
 
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