catholic

I'll be attending the 2012 Catholic New Media Conference in Dallas/Fort Worth from August 29-31; will I see you there? This year will be the largest CNMC yet, with a ton of great speakers and separate tracks for different days of the conference.

This year's theme is Marketing Your Message, and the main track of the CNMC Professional Day will be filled with keynote speakers talking about this theme. At the same time, Matthew Warner and I will be leading a Tech Summit, meant for Catholic app and web developers, designers, and Catholic development companies, talking about apps, APIs, web development, and collaboration.

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:

Pope Benedict XVI's message for the 46th annual World Communications Day has been published on the Vatican website. We learned earlier that his theme for this year is silence, and the message is brief and impactful.

One passage that stood out in my reading was the following (emphasis mine):

Attention should be paid to the various types of websites, applications and social networks which can help people today to find time for reflection and authentic questioning, as well as making space for silence and occasions for prayer, meditation or sharing of the word of God. In concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible, profound thoughts can be communicated, as long as those taking part in the conversation do not neglect to cultivate their own inner lives.

From the Vatican Information Service:

"It is no exaggeration", the Pope added, "to say that providing young people with a sound education in the faith represents the most urgent internal challenge facing the Catholic community in your country".

"First, as we know, the essential task of authentic education ... is not simply that of passing on knowledge, essential as this is, but also of shaping hearts. There is a constant need to balance intellectual rigour in communicating ... the richness of the Church’s faith with forming the young in the love of God, the praxis of the Christian moral and sacramental life and, not least, the cultivation of personal and liturgical prayer".

Read the full article here: The Catholic Identity of Educational Institutions.

Frank R. O'Brien, owner of O'Brien Industrial Holdings, has filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Health and Human Services because the recent contraception mandate violates his right to freedom of religious belief.

CBS News reports:

The lawsuit marks the first legal challenge to the HHS mandate from a private business owner and his company. Until now, only religious organizations or institutions have brought lawsuits challenging the mandate. ...

I usually avoid writing about politics on this website, but the recent Health and Human Services coverage mandate debacle has annoyed me to no end, as I feel that it's one of the first incisive and direct attacks on the freedom of my religion I've witnessed.

Basically, the mandate is telling me (if it is ever enforced), "The U.S. Government has the right to make its citizens pay for whatever the U.S. Government deems necessary for whatever reason, even if a citizen is morally opposed due to a religious belief." In a way, this happens from time to time (like with a war I don't support), but never as a direct, out-of-pocket expense, like that of my health insurance premium (something for which I pay more than my residence).

I was recently inspired by Jeffrey Miller's embeddable Advent Wreath widget to try my hand at illustrating and animating an advent wreath in HTML5 with the <canvas> element or by animating an SVG.

My heart was in it for a while, but I ultimately gave up on the project due to the fact that I had already spent a couple hours on it and wasn't happy with my progress...

However, I did end up with a fairly good illustrator/vector wreath and candles (I spent a bit of time trying to get the flames looking just right), and also created a brush to create the actual wreath, making it look somewhat like an evergreen wreath.

As we approach Christmas, I tried to think of a few gifts that others like me (namely, Catholic web developers and online content producers) could use to help them become more effective in their work.

I came up with a list of items ranging from the Catholic Catechism (I'm surprised by how many of my Catholic friends don't have a copy yet) to the Glif—a tiny but great tripod mount and stand for the iPhone 4/4S—and posted them on Open Source Catholic: The Catholic Developer and Blogger Christmas Wish List 2011.

Just wanted to announce here the immediate availability of the Android version of the Catholic News Live Mobile App. You can buy the app for your Android-powered device on the Android Market: Catholic News Live.

The Android version joins the iOS version that's been out for about a year now, as well as the website, all three in combination allowing you to follow the latest Catholic News wherever you are, on whatever platform you use! Read more about the Catholic News Live mobile app »

Here are a few screenshots from the app on an Android phone:

I recently read a blog post titled 'Freedom from Choice' from the Red Sweater Blog (a blog by Daniel Jalkut, a Mac programmer) with great interest, considering the subject matter (Steve Jobs, computing, and free/open source software). In the post, Daniel speaks about how Steve Jobs' decisions to restrict certain 'freedoms' on the iOS and Mac platforms has helped Macs, iPhones, and iPads become more focused and consumer-friendly devices.

The reason for this is that the user no longer has to worry about making a thousand decisions to accomplish a simple task.

Daniel said that Richard Stallman, a staunch 'everything must be free' software programer, "paints Jobs as a robber of freedoms, first and foremost, while neglecting to acknowledge the many liberties he brought, for example to those of us who can’t, or don’t want to build our own computing infrastructures."

This is readily apparent and admitted by those in the computing world who realize that giving people a command line/terminal and telling them to go to town is a very bad idea. Most people I know would (and do) quickly ruin their computers because of the level of control they have over them. How many people do you know have laptops that are always locking up, shutting down, or messing up due to software people installed on them, additions people made, or simply the little things people have done to their computers for the sake of making them 'their own'. (It's the same with many Android phones, in my experience...).

Is it not the same in our personal lives, in the realm of morals and faith? Everyone subscribes to some moral system or faith/religion (whether it's formalized or not), and some people (like me) choose to belong to a faith (Catholicism) which helps us make the decisions that will help us be better humans, free of the 'malware' and ailments that eat at our souls and self-images.