Archdiocese of Milwaukee new digs

I'm just noticing now(I dont think I posted this before?), but I've been busy so this could have happened a while ago.  Looks great.  I think dioceses are really now realizing how important the web presence is.  Once upon a time it was lets-find-some-kid-who-works-on-computers to "take care of that."  Now actual professionals are giving an essential component to diocesan communication and life.  Well worth the financial investment.  Great work!

https://www.archmil.org

Digital Church Conference Coming to Diocese of Winona October 4th

Note: I may try to attend if I can get off of work

Digital Church Conference

Event Name: Diocese of Winona (Minnesota)

Location: Mayo Civic Center Auditorium (Rochester, Minnesota)

Date: October 4, 2013

Time: 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM (optional Mass 7:30am at Saint John the Evangelist Church)

Hosted by the Diocese of Winona, parishioners, organization leaders, parish and school leaders will have an opportunity to attend a one day comprehensive nationally conference on the essential tools and skills needed to harness the power of new media for the new evangelization.

This is an excellent opportunity for parish and school webmasters, social network administrators and all ministry leaders or anyone who would like to use new media to enhance and strengthen their ministry and evangelization efforts. Please forward this to anyone who could benefit from attending this exciting and timely conference.

Three nationally recognized speakers will provide dynamic presentations and inspire you and teach you how to use new media such as websites, social media and e-marketing to promote the Gospel values that are critically needed in our culture.

Guzman: The Father Who is There

Recently, at the park with my wife and son, I witnessed one of the saddest sights I’ve seen in a long time. A little boy, about five or six, was there with his dad. Normally, this would be a wonderful thing, but the tragedy was, they weren’t spending time with each other. The dad was engrossed in his phone — ignoring his child.

No matter what he tried, this little boy could not get his father’s attention. He jumped up and down yelling, “Dad! Dad! Look at me!” He climbed up the jungle gym, went down the slide, raced in circles, all the while hoping that he might win the affectionate glance, the loving interaction, of his father. But the dad wouldn’t even look up from his phone. He would respond with a distracted grunt, if that.

Finally, depressed and dejected, the little boy sat in a swing by himself. He didn’t swing, he just sat there. His joy and enthusiasm had been extinguished by the inattention of his father, whose attention he very obviously craved. No doubt, his childish heart was grieved and wounded by his relative unimportance compared to a cell phone.

continue at Truth and Charity

CrisisPregancies.org launched to support moblie pro-life sidewalk counselors

New pro-life website designed for smartphones

Pro-Life Wisconsin has unveiled a brand new crisis pregnancy website!

The website, crisispregnancies.org, is designed primarily to be used by those with smartphones (iPhone or an Android operating system, for example). It is also accessible by computer.

The website utilizes a mapping feature to list nearby crisis pregnancy centers, along with the harms of abortion and fetal development information.

There are endless opportunities for this new website -- sidewalk counselors can use it to find and locate a nearby crisis pregnancy center, students in class can use it to discuss the harms of abortion or counsel an abortion-minded friend.

Bookmark and share this website for you or someone you know!

PLW: Steve Jobs, adopted as a newborn, had Wisconsin roots

Re-posting from the blog Pro-Life in Tennessee, written by a Wisconsin native:

While we love our I pads and I phones and mourn the passing of Steve Jobs….human being….genius…..did you know he was just “products of conception?”

It started with two graduate students from the University of Wisconsin. Joanne Schiebel got pregnant from Syrian Political Science professor Abdulfattah Jandali. Her parents did not approve of them marrying, they did not have the financial resources , and she wanted to continue her education.

Yes, this was pre Roe vs Wade but abortions were still being done. Joanne decided on an adoption plan for her pre born child. She felt strongly that she wanted her child to be well educated and selected a lawyer and his wife. But when Steve was born the selected couple declined because they really wanted a girl….remember this was before ultrasounds. So another couple got the call to adopt the bouncing baby boy. Joanne was skeptical at first because they did not have the education she was looking for. The husband was a machinist and the mother an accountant. But they promised they would provide this baby with the opportunity to go to college. They kept that promise working hard and sacrificing to send Steve to college but as we know he dropped out after one semester, frustrated with the constraints of formal education.

He benefited from a stable family and a strong father/son relationship:

As a boy, Jobs and his father would work on electronics in the family garage. Paul would show his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics, a hobby which instilled confidence, tenacity, and mechanical prowess in young Jobs.

Much is being written about Jobs today. But for all his accomplishments let’s remember some heroes in the background. Joanne Schiebel who did not think of her pre born child as just “products of conception.” She choose life and made an adoption plan with his best interest in mind.

 ProLife Wisconsin

Josh Mercer reminded me that Jobs was featured in one of CatholicVote's many fantastic ads.