Web design has been on my mind as I collaborate with a friend who designs websites on the redesign of my own parish website, so naturally, one thing that popped into my mind yesterday as I typed about the new bishop was the need of the Diocese of Shreveport for a fresh look to their little street address along the information superhighway. This morning, I mentioned it to a coworker and when we visited the diocesan website, we found this: Diocese of Shreveport.
What a pleasant and timely surprise! We both laughed at the coincidence, but upon further investigation, I did a little more laughing on my own. It was well-known among employees of the diocese that the website was long out of date and that many things had not been updated in quite some time, so I felt the bishop must have noticed when I read a little part of his commentary on the first page: "On On March 12, 2008, my life changed in a single moment due to an unexpected phone call from Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States. He called to inform me the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, had chosen me to be the second Bishop for the Diocese of Shreveport. I was overwhelmed, but in the next moment I assured Archbishop Sambi I would accept. We exchanged a few words and I hung up the phone. For the next few moments, I just sat there trying to take it all in. Then I went to the Internet and searched for the Catholic Diocese of Shreveport; and for the first time, I saw the Diocese I am now called to serve. Paging through the website..."
How funny is that? Here I was commenting on our need of a new website and it turns out it was the first thing from our diocese the new bishop laid eyes on! Perhaps he had been of the same opinion as I, but one thing is for sure, if he asked for the changes that have been made, he has good taste.
God bless,
Micah Murphy
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
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1 comments:
I couldn't agree with you more about the website. In most good dioceses the website is THE communication tool of the bishop. May he use it as such here as well. I would love to see a weekly column from the bishop. Wouldn't it be great to have a two-way communication vehicle as well?
Speaking of communication, that slick, but useless, house organ known as the Catholic Connection needs to be transformed into a meaningful and didactic tool, weekly if possible, not the documentary of sweet nothings it has devolved into.
Also, while he is at it, how about his dismantling that Teilhard de Chardin shrine at the Catholic Center known as the Slattery Library. I once asked the librarian if she knew who that was whose his picture was so prominent on the wall. Oh yes, she said, we have lots of his works! The shelves need to be purged, too, of all the other dissenting theologians they seem to boast about.
While he is at it with his new broom, for starters the Greco Institute could be swept clean of all the New Age claptrap (Celtic spirituality, eastern spirituality, Richard Rohr spirituality, Joseph Campbell spirituality, etc.). One of the audit points of the seminary review a couple years ago was looking at New Age/eclectic spirituality, even though homosexuality got all the press, and its effect on the formation of priests therein. Why would it be apposite, then, for a diocese through its education organ to promote something that seminaries are trying to purge? Bishop Duca should be one to know all about that effort. May he engage it here too, not just at Greco but in all those parishes that push the same agenda, if not actively by priests, then by their passive acquiescence and laissez-faire approach, especially to their over active radical feminists.
One last thing, nearly all of the diocese's DREs are graduates of LIMEX, that bastion of Jesuit heterodoxy. Someone like the Bishop needs to look at what they are really teaching and the multiplying effect it is having on the spirituality of the diocese.
Give 'em hell, Apprentice!
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