Brandon Vogt - The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York

My expectation is that this book will give the Church courage and wisdom to embrace New Media as one of the premier gifts of God to evangelists of our day.

Cardinal Sen OMalley, O.F.M. Cap., archbishop of Boston

This book demonstrates how New Media is already impacting the Church and outlines many practical steps for dioceses, parishes, and individual Catholics to embrace it more broadly.... Everyone involved in communications and evangelization ministries for the Church should read it.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington

From the quill to the printing press to the modern app, the Church has faced the challenge of preaching the Word of God in a way that each generation will hear it. The Church and New Media offers an insightful contribution to the way in which the Church passes on the Gospel message in the age of new social communication. This book helps us understand both the potential and the challenges of blogging, tweeting, and all the multiple forms of the new communications. I am pleased to recommend this very useful guide for individuals, parishes, and diocesan workers who seek to use the New Media to proclaim the Gospel and pass on the faith.

Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., archbishop of Denver

The Church and New Media is the best kind of reading: timely, vivid, and rich in valuable information. For anyone seeking to understand and use todays new technologies in advancing the Catholic faith, this book is an unsurpassed resource.

Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vaticans Pontifical Council for Social Communications

Brandon Vogts book The Church and New Media is a wonderful guide to the emerging presence of American Catholic voices in the digital arena. The book is not primarily an instruction manual telling us how to use New Media; more significantly, it shows us what can be done. By showcasing some proven initiatives, it invites us to reflect on how we can witness to our faith in the new public square that is being created by social media. We can learn from the expertise of those who are already actively ensuring that the Church is present in this new continent, but perhaps more importantly, we can take heart from their enthusiasm and be encouraged by the fruitfulness of their labor.

Mike Aquilina, author and executive vice president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology

If St. Peter, St. Ignatius, and St. Augustine had access to todays New Media, they would do exactly the same things as the contributors to this book. The Church and New Media carries the Churchs mission into the digital age and is better than a graduate degree in media. Youll learn what works from Catholics who are already spreading the Gospel through these tools. Marshall McLuhan would be well pleased.

James Martin, S.J., author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

This important new book reminds all Catholics of the need to use any means at our disposal to spread the Gospel. After all, Jesus of Nazareth used easy-to-understand images like birds, seeds, and clouds in the medium known as the parable to convey his message. Todays evangelical media are blogs, websites, and social media (and no doubt something invented in the last few months). If Jesus could speak about the birds of the air, then we should not be afraid of tweeting.

Amy Welborn, popular Catholic author and blogger

In The Church and the New Media, Brandon Vogt presents helpful essays from a variety of Catholics active in online ministry. The experiences and advice of this diverse group of bloggers, social networkers, and Internet evangelists will be helpful to any Catholic seeking to utilize the Internet to present the Catholic faith, as well as to understand its risks and potential.

Elizabeth Scalia, managing editor of the Catholic Portal at Patheos.com and the blogger known as The Anchoress

As the Catholic Church makes a dynamic entry into the virtual arena encouraging its priests, religious, and laypeople to embrace alternative media, and introducing its own multi-media brand in News.va The Church and New Media is that rarest of things: precisely the right book, released at precisely the right time. Brandon Vogt has a true journalists ability to bring disparate components together for analysis and breakdown; here he manages to use well-known and newer voices to demonstrate the power of this revolutionary means of evangelization, and its lasting impact. This is relevant, timely reading for Catholics who wonder how emerging media can positively impact the life of faith in the 21st Century.

Sister Helena Burns, media literacy educator for the Daughters of St. Paul and Pauline Books and Media

The Church and New Media is the book for all engaged Catholics to be reading and talking about! It is full of sage advice for utilizing the exciting panoply of New Media.

Its unique format lets the Catholic New Media movers, shakers, and early-adopters tell their own stories. The book introduces us to some of its stellar leaders who are answering the call of both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI to carry out the New Evangelization.

Mark Hart, vice president of Life Teen International and author of Blessed Are the Bored in Spirit: A Young Catholics Search for Meaning

The Church and New Media is a timely and necessary read for all serving the Church today. The books lucid insights and practical ideas should be shared and replicated by Catholics around the globe.

For years, the Church has been challenged to share the Gospel with a screen-based culture. But The Church and New Media offers some viable solutions, a sorely needed guide for the Church today.

If those entrusted with handing on the faith subscribe to the principles within this book, the Gospel will undoubtedly take root in our modern, tech-savvy culture.

Dan Andriacco, communications director for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and author of Screen Saved

Brandon Vogt has compiled an outstanding handbook of digital evangelism, written by some of the most successful pioneers in the field. From theological underpinnings to practical advice, this book has something new to tell you wherever you are from Catholic mom with a blogging itch to diocesan professional. I particularly appreciated the often-repeated admonition to avoid negativity in our digital communications and instead embrace the faith with joy. Thats the way to evangelize!

John Dyer, author of From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology

Brandon Vogt has assembled some of the best examples of Catholics stepping into our media-saturated, technology-dominated world in order to draw people to Christ. Vogt is careful to point out the potential negatives that can come with todays technology, but rather than concluding that we should fearfully reject the new tools, he and his fellow writers show us how to enthusiastically and deftly embrace them.

BLOGGING CONVERTS,
ONLINE ACTIVISTS,
AND BISHOPS
WHO TWEET

BRANDON
VOGT

All quotations from papal statements and documents, Second Vatican