Good Catholics support quality Catholic media efforts.
Unfortunately, good Catholics also support low-quality Catholic media efforts. What to do?
I’ve had several conversations with Catholics working in media and marketing who are tired of the lower standard for media in the Church. I wholeheartedly agree.
I won’t label anyone in particular as a producer of media in this category, but I know you all can tell the difference. …Can’t you? If your company’s internal newsletter looked like a church bulletin, would you accept that? Or if the website looked like a Catholic parish’s website, would you find that acceptable?
Why the low standard? Do you not believe we are communicating the greatest Message of all time? Why should our media and promotional materials be lacking? Why aren’t they receiving awards for exceptional creativity and communicative efficiency?
> Check out a venture by many Protestant Christian Churches called Church Marketing Sucks. Great blog, Facebook page and Twitter feed to follow and learn from.
While there are more and more Protestant Christian resources becoming available on the web toward high-quality Church media, our differences in theology affect the way Catholics use media. As far as I’ve seen, there isn’t enough of a methodological approach available which infuses the Catholic mindset and worldview with media. (< That’s one of the observations at the end of my thesis, by the way.)
Something needs to be done. Don’t settle for less, people. I’m not saying it’s wrong to support people who are producing lame Catholic media, but it certainly seems counter-productive. God’s grace has certainly worked miracles and converted hearts through lame Catholic media, and I praise God for that. But why should we settle on poor quality? Shouldn’t we give our best in the service of the Lord?
With that, I present a lovely parable made by Protestants…
catholicmediagirl.wordpress.com 
Angela, Amen sister! I’m loving your new blog – did you receive the email I sent you yesterday?
Angela, this is really interesting.
Could you elaborate on the differences in theology that affect how Protestants and Catholics use media?
+What do you mean by a methodological approach? Like a set of rules, guidelines, & tips for Catholic churches & organizations using media? What would be included in that methodology?
Sorry, Greg, I’m going to save the answers to your questions for my thesis. 🙂
(sigh) 😦
I just came across this blog and simply wish I could agree with you more than 100 percent. Have you looked into any Vatican documents on the issue. like Inter Merifica? (I’m not totally sure on the spelling of that document. But it is a Latin title, although you can find it written in English.)
Marty(?) – thanks for visiting. Yes, as I was researching for my now-published thesis on Catholic new media, I read Inter Merifica. There are a handful of other documents released by Church officials that deal with media. I’d like to touch on this in an upcoming blog post.
I would be curious to know what those are. (Maybe a future blog post as well?) As a guy who has worked in Catholic media since 2001, I’ve tried to keep up.