archdiocese

The 'Souls and Goals' soccer match is now in its third year! The Kenrick-Glennon Seminary Lions will battle against the Clergy and Company team (comprised of a bunch of priests and a few friends, like me!).

The game will be held at St. Dominic High School on Thursday, November 5, with a kickoff at 7 p.m. The game is free to anyone, and concessions will be available. More info is available on the Souls and Goals website (with a fresh new design for 2015).

I'll be playing in goal again this year (as part of the 'and Company' on the Clergy side), wearing my Vatican-yellow jersey! The Seminarians won the past two Cups—we'll see if we can pull off a victory this year!

[Update: There is now a simple website where the latest information can be found: Souls and Goals.org.]

On November 7, 2013, there will be a soccer match between 'clergy and company' (archdiocesan priests, a bishop, and some of their friends) and the Kenrick-Glennon Seminary Lions (the seminary's soccer team) at St. Dominic High School.

The match is free and open to all the faithful in the Archdiocese, and will be a friendly match with concessions, some special visitors, and prayers for vocations.

Details:

I was disheartened by the following news story from the St. Louis Post Dispatch: 'Mormons: 1. Indonesians: 0' debate post by STL Catholic exec causes stir.

The story notes that Alderwoman Lyda Krewson, a Democrat in the 28th ward in St. Louis, tweeted a comment made by an employee of the Archdiocese of St. Louis on the employee's personal Facebook wall—which is set to private, and only accessible/visible to the employee's friends. (Note that the same employee has a public Twitter account that she uses for public communications).

From the press release announcing the lawsuit:

The Archdiocese of St. Louis and Catholic Charities of St. Louis are taking legal action against the federal government of the United States of America. During a press conference today, Archbishop Robert J. Carlson announced that a lawsuit challenging the legality of the HHS mandate was filed in court this morning.

Archbishop Carlson stated that the Church “had pursued every other imaginable option to correct this problem,” and added that, “Right now the future is unclear, and any scenario that forces us to violate our moral convictions is unacceptable. At the same time, any sce- nario that forces our St. Louis area hospitals, schools, and charities to close would be dev- astating to the many people employed and served by these institutions.”

See the press conference video, posted to the Archdiocese's YouTube channel:

Catholic Tech Talk, a Catholic tech/web discussion website, recently posted what they believe to be the five best Catholic Diocesan websites, and I'm happy to report that our very own Archdiocese of St. Louis was ranked #2!

Other dioceses to make the list:

Since the announcements seem to be making the rounds today, I figured it would be a good time to post this little bit of news to my blog: I'm leaving my position in the Archdiocese of St. Louis to pursue another opportunity!

Starting May 2, I'll be working with a great new team of Catholics for flockNote, a service/website for Catholic parishes and organizations to help register individuals and send them, well, "Notes!"

I've been working for the Archdiocese of St. Louis for almost three years, first in the Catholic Youth Apostolate, and for the last year as the Director of Web Development, and it's been a wonderful experience. I'd like to sincerely thank everyone in the Curia of the Archdiocese of St. Louis for some great professional development, wonderful memories, and for being in a very wonderful and Catholic workplace (we had Mass in the building almost every day that I was working there!).

I'm happy to announce that my first iPhone App—Catholic STL—has been accepted by Apple for the iTunes App Store, and is available for free starting today!

The Archdiocese of St. Louis also announced the App this morning, and has a 'mobile app' section on the website with screenshots, an introductory video, and more information about the App. The App is free, so what are you waiting for? If you live in St. Louis, or are visiting, go ahead and download it now.

The App basically lets users find parishes and sacrament times/parish information in the first section, read news in the second section, and read and post prayer requests on the Archdiocesan website in the third section.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis is celebrating the feast of its patron saint today, St. Louis IX. Saint Louis was a very generous man, always giving to the poor, helping charitable organizations and religious orders, and generally being the kind of king who tries to please God rather than man.

You can read more about the feast of St. Louis IX (and about the man himself) on the Archdiocese of St. Louis' website.

[UPDATE: Post on the Archdiocesan website about the new Office of Web Development.]

At a meeting with the Archdiocesan Curia yesterday, Archbishop Carlson thanked everyone for their service in the Archdiocese, and he also talked about some changes that will be put in place in the next few months to help the Curia better serve Archdiocesan parishes and organizations.

One of these changes, which was not mentioned too strongly, but I think is very important, is the creation of the Office of Web Development.

The Archdiocese of Saint Louis today upgraded its entire website to a new design and a new platform, allowing offices and agencies to more quickly and more easily communicate with the faithful in the Archdiocese (and around the world!).

I've been working on this project (with a lot of help from Palantir, a web development company in Chicago) and some local developers for the past year, and I am pleased with the result (I hope you are, too!). I've written up more information about the technical aspects of the site on Open Source Catholic (read more about the Archdiocese of Saint Louis' Upgraded Website), and I will continue writing some posts about specific details on the Open Source Catholic website.

Some of the highlights of the redesign: