That afternoon, I walked out of the conference room feeling bewildered. How could I leave? I couldn’t understand why I felt that the Holy Spirit was saying, “Your work here is done. Go use your gifts elsewhere.”

“But, I feel like I have so much more to give”, I thought. It would only be later that I would realize that I do have more to give, just not where I was…but we’ll get to that later.

This problem gnawed at me for days. I kept going back and forth on what to do. Sometimes it’s hard discerning which way is “your will” versus “His Will”.

It really stinks.

Given this recent experience I wanted to share the steps I took that helped me make my choice. My process is based on the Ignatian Framework for Making a Decisions, which I highly recommend.

Note, that I already knew what my issue was (i.e. should I do X or Y?). If you are having a hard time deciding what the actual problem is, I suggest reading through the Ignation Decision Framework I linked to above. It will help you identify the decision to be made or the issue to be resolved.

Pray for Openness to God’s Will and for Freedom From Prejudgment

Ask for that inner freedom and balance that allows you not to be inclined more toward one alternative or option than to the other. This means to ask to be free enough to be influenced only by this one value: which alternative will give most glory to God and be expressive of my own deepest self, my authentic self?

Scripture that is helpful to me to reflect on:

John 12:24, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

Psalm 37:5, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will act”

It’s not natural for us to separate ourselves from judgment. I find it helpful to compartmentalized the issue so that I can try to focus on what the Lord is bringing to light. It’s easier said than done, but that’s the whole reason why you start with this step first.

Gather Info & Discuss

For me, this is probably the most critical. Gathering all the pieces in one place is an extremely clarifying exercise. This can be done mentally or actually written out. Then find someone who you trust and who is impartial. Then discuss the information with them. Usually, I hear the Lord speak to me through other people whom I respect and trust. In this particular decision, I spoke with multiple people including a mentor, my men’s small group and my most trusted confidant, my wife.

Once you’ve gathered all the data.

Weigh the Pros and Cons

List all the reasons you can think of. Do not prejudge their merit. Then once you are done, evaluate to see which advantages and disadvantages seem to be coming from the influence of the Holy Spirit and which ones do not.

Based on the pluses and minuses I also try to think through which route is pragmatic.

Fear Is Not of the Lord

At this point, I think it is worth reminding you that fear does NOT come from GOD.

It is natural that you start to get anxious as all the details come together, especially if it seems that they are leaning toward a position that we may be uncomfortable with.

God does not bring fear into our lives. This only comes from the evil one.

2 Timothy 1:7, “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.”

Usually when I know I’m on the right path, I feel at peace.

What is peace?

To me, peace is knowing that I’m doing the right thing, for the right reasons and at the right time. God brings us peace. So if you are starting to feel at peace, this might be a sense from the Holy Spirit. Ask God to give you consolation about the best option. Here is some scripture to help:

John 12:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”

Philippians 4:6-7, “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Psalm 34:15, Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

However, just because you feel at peace about something, doesn’t make the decision any easier.

Visualize Your Decision and Confirm It

This last step helps you confirm that peaceful feeling, despite the potential bittersweetness that you may be experiencing

Trust in God and make your decision, even if you are not certain about it.

Take the time to imagine yourself for a little while going down the desired path. Do you feel good about it? Do you your thoughts, desires, and feelings continue to support it? If not, you may need to get more information. You can also try imagining yourself going down the other path. If you get a feeling of discomfort or agitation, then the other option may be what God’s will is for you.

I did my best to follow these steps with my most recent decision.

Now, back to that conference room.

I was at a crossroads.

As I got up, I thought to myself, “how could the Lord be asking me to let go of something that I love so dearly?” When I thought about leaving I felt an overwhelming sense of both peace and bittersweetness.

I Finally Made up My Mind

After going through much deliberation, prayer, and spending time in adoration I made my choice.

I decided to leave my position on the board of SQPN (the Star Quest Production Network).

Now, before some of you freak out, you should know that I’m not leaving the SQPN community, just tendering my resignation as a board member. You’ll still see me in the Catholic Weekend chat room occasionally and I plan to continue blogging about Catholic Media and at A Couple of Catholics.

I’ve been a board member of SQPN for over four years and it’s been a wild ride. In my tenure, we brought the Lord’s plan to life through podcasts, blogs, videos, Google Hangouts, social media posts, tweetups and more.

In my opinion, one of the best things SQPN ever did was to create The Catholic New Media Celebration. It is an annual gathering of consumers and creators of digital media hosted by SQPN, that celebrates the people behind the content.

I’ve been to all of them and recently attended the 2015 CNMC in Atlanta on June 7th. During the weekend, we celebrated 10 years of Catholic new media. It was the perfect bookend to God gracing me with lifetime friends, an incredible Catholic community and relationships that have produced much fruit both personally and professionally.

I’m incredibly thankful for many things in my life and the SQPN community is in the top five.

Why?

Because, I can honestly say my life wouldn’t be the same without SQPN!

My Journey in Catholic New Media

I started podcasting in college with my dear friend Steve Nelson, who then as a campus minister started On the U – College Catholic Podcast.

It was my experience with this podcast production and my film degree that helped me get my start in my career.

Then as my the economy shifted, so did my job. I moved to advertising as a “Lead Social Media Specialist”.

Now as Sr. Social Media Strategist and Web Video Producer, I can see how the Lord was working through SQPN to help me grow professionally.

I grew closer to my brothers by producing the In Between Sundays, a podcast for young adults.

My involvement with SQPN community also challenged me to stay a faithful Catholic in a time of flux when many of my closest friends fell away from the Church.

I became a board member of SQPN in 2012. With this I was able to help the organization with their communications and planning.

I will never know how much my actions as a board member of SQPN did for evangelization or the advancement the use of digital media within the Church. But, one thing’s for sure. We made the world a better place because of how the Spirit used our talents in new media for spreading the Good News.

I am forever thankful and blessed by this organization. This is why it was so hard for me to come to realization that it was time for me to move on. (and why this blog post has nearly taken me a month to write)

You might be thinking, what now?

So What’s the Future Hold?

Well, my friends, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” (Luke 10:2)

I am shifting my focus to my personal projects including writing/blogging, speaking, and a few media ideas I haven’t had the time to work on since joining SQPN.

Lastly, I plan to spend lots of time with my wife and daughter. As many of you know my little girl is about 10 months. She just started crawling and now my life is filled with baby-proofing our apartment and chasing the little goober around.

Despite the deep bittersweet feeling I have about leaving my role at SQPN, I am at peace. After watching Fr. Roderick’s final video address at the CNMC, it made me realize how much SQPN has accomplished in the last 10 years and how grateful I am that I was a part of it.

I have a great sense of hope for the future of Catholic media and will continue to pray for the New Evangelization. Here’s to the next decade!

Yes, Another News App.

Apple’s Newstand app was a big failure. So why now?

The app’s goal is a familiar one–create a personalized news experience.

During the keynote, Apple’s VP of Product Marketing, Susan Prescott, gave an example search term: Swift. This may present topics like Taylor Swift, the SwiftKey keyboard app, or Apple’s Swift programming language (among others). By selecting one of these results, users can add the new topic to their favorites list for later browsing.

Apple emphasized the app’s privacy, as it won’t share a user’s reading habits with third parties. However, that’s just it… “the news” is way more social and personal than ever.

It’s into this context that News app steps foot and will be competing against not just other news apps, but also Facebook Instant Articles (launched in May), which lets content creators publish to News Feed and SnapChat Discover. With so much competition you may wonder why Apple is even interested. All of these apps are designed to “increase engagement”: to divert precious attention from elsewhere to these particular apps, and by grabbing high-quality attention, sell high-value ads.

Can I Publish My Own Stuff?

For now you can use the News Publisher portal to sign your publication up for inclusion using your website’s RSS feed, but Apple says it will add publishing tools later this year. It’s starting with an initial list of publishers like New York Times, GQ, Wired, and others, but here’s how to get your own content in the app:

1. First you’ll need to visit Apple’s News Publisher portal here.
2. Sign in using the Apple ID you want associated with your publication on News
3. Next Apple will ask you to agree to its End User License Agreement for News
4. Now Apple will ask for your personal information including the name of your publication, address, phone number, etc
5. You can then set your channel name, website address, and select your primary audience, languages and specify territories if you wish.
6. Apple News optionally lets you select multiple channels for your publication as well:
   • After submitting, click the name of your channel in the toolbar in News Publishes
   • Select ‘Create New Channel’

Apple has tips on preparing your RSS feed, assets, and content for the service, as well as information on advertising. There’s a general FAQ for publishers here.

News is part of Apple’s iOS 9, with the new operating system launching for everyone this fall. The News app will release first for users in the U.S., U.K. and Australia.

Will you be adding your blog, news site or content to the app? Have you already had success with apps like Flipboard? Share in the comments below.

After a measured rollout of Promoted Pins, the social bookmarking network aims to give marketers full-funnel advertising solutions in the coming months. Pinterest video ads come more than a year after Pinterest first started selling Promoted Pins, and the changes are a big step for its ad technology. Brands will be able to target about a dozen audience types from foodies and gardening enthusiasts to millennials.

Pinterest’s take on the video ad is definitely a bit different from the video ads developed by rivals like Facebook and Twitter. Cinematic Pins are somewhat of a rebuke of what Pinterest describes as “interruptive and annoying” autoplay video ads. With Cinematic Pins, the movement begins as users scroll down their feed and the speed of the animation adjusts to users’ scrolling speed. The full videos play only after users click to expand the pins.

Not only do these new units give brands the ability to expand their storytelling content, but they look amazing. The ads won’t be served to desktop users, which makes sense since more than 80 percent of Pinterest activity takes place on mobile.

For the announcement, Pinterest produced a video of how Cinematic Pins will look:

The looping videos will be on the short side. Pinterest is recommending that brands keep the full videos to about 50 frames, 10 of which are shown on users feeds. Launch partners include Banana Republic, Gap, L’Oreal USA, Nestle, Old Navy, Target, Unilever, Visa, Walgreens and Wendy’s.

Of course, bringing motion into digital advertising isn’t a new wrinkle — animated banner ads have long been a staple in the market and brands have used animated GIFs, cinemagraphs and other formats to try to catch people’s attention. However, I believe the new Pinterest feature is unique enough to gain traction, although it will remain to be seen whether it will have staying power.

Cinematic Pins were introduced along with several other new Pinterest initiatives, including the impending official rollout of the company’s CPC based Promoted Pin program, now enhanced by cost-per-action and cost-per-engagement features. To learn more about additional advertising methods, read this wrap-up article from Marketing Land: Pinterest To Greatly Expand Advertising Solutions This Summer.

This blog post was originally published at DEGDigital.com on May 22, 2015.

Admittedly, this post probably would have served you better if it were posted before Ash Wednesday. But hey, part of being Catholic is always striving to be better. So if you need a bit of a Lent pick-me-up, here are four of our favorite Lent resources to help you deepen your faith journey.

The Way of the Cross (audio experience)

Based on the writings of St. Alphonsus Liguori, this Way of the Cross is an immersive audio experience that places you in the midst of the Passion of Jesus Christ. It is an incredible prayer tool. The great thing about this Lenten resource is that it is a guided meditation. This audio Way of the Cross is  an incredible accompaniment to prayer and is edited to give the listener enough time to really contemplate each station. Mad props to my friends at the Archdiocese of Denver’s Office of Evangelization and Family Life Ministries who produced it.

Note: The full audio takes about 40 minutes to listen to, so I suggest downloading it to your phone and listening during your commute. Forty minutes might sound long, but it is definitely worth it.

Download the MP3 or listen to The Way of the Cross in your browser.

The Best Lent Ever by Dynamic Catholic

I love the folks at Dynamic Catholic because all of their resources are both practical and actionable. Their Best Lent Ever program is no different. According to their website: “Lent is not just about giving things up. Lent is about doing something. Doing something bold. Becoming a better husband, father, wife, mother, friend, etc. This program will help you do just that. Each week [we] will email you simple yet powerful messages that explain the genius of Catholicism and will inspire you to become the-best-version-of-yourself.”

Their emails include videos, inspirational quotes, and spiritual coaching from Matthew Kelly himself. For me these act as a nice short reminder to keep my focus during Lent. You can sign up here. It’s simple, and the only cost is your commitment to live better each day this Lent.

Bonus points: If you work at a parish Dynamic Catholic provides you some resources to promote this program at your church, including an email template (well done DC, you’re clearly my kind of people).

Daily Lent Reflections by Fr. Barron

If you’re looking to get filled daily, Word on Fire has put together a special series of Lenten meditations at LentReflections.com. Each reflection is written by Fr. Robert Barron. Additionally, by signing up you get exclusive videos, special discounts on WOF merch and free giveaways (yes we know it’s a marketing tactic, but we all like free books, CDs & DVDs).

So far I’ve found these meditations to be quite thought-provoking. They are a little more in-depth and contemplative. Additionally, if you click-through their emails and go to their website daily you can join a conversation under each reflection with people around the world.

Bonus points: You can sign up for their daily reflections in both English and Spanish!

LENTSANITY by FOCUS Catholic

For Lent FOCUS has produced a ton of content on a special microsite called Lentsanity. The site includes blog posts, recipes, social streams and even a video Web series called the Meat Police. Additionally you can get their Lenten reflections, resources, articles, and more delivered to your email. I really like their style and how they use digital media to keep you engaged during the season. Certainly innovative for a Catholic group in how they distribute their content. Props my friends.

Bonus points: FOCUS created an app for Lent! This extension of the Lentsanity microsite puts all the resources of FOCUS’ campaign in your pocket, AND even sends push notifications before lunch and dinner to remind you to not eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Download the app here: Apple App Store or Google Play Store

I hope these four resources help you grow closer to the Lord as we prepare for His resurrection at Easter. Also check out NC Register’s 2015 Ultimate Lenten Resource Guide for a more comprehensive list.

What resources are helping you and your family grow closer to our Lord this season? Share them below in the comments.

This post was originally published at acoupleofcatholics.com.

I don’t experiment with every app that comes out, but I do feel a responsibility to you and my clients to have some idea of what’s out there and what’s worthwhile. So, I took a quick inventory and created this quick-hit list of the five digital tools I use most often.

#1: Buffer

Buffer helps you quickly schedule content from anywhere on the web. If you manage multiple social media accounts, it lets you easily collaborate with other team members and provides high-level statistics on how your posts perform. The best part is their browser extension that let’s you “buffer” and share any web page, photo, even a text excerpt. This makes it extremely easy to schedule as you go about your daily routine online.

Why I use it:

Buffer is how I keep a consistent flow of interesting content in my social feeds. It’s so simple that I’ve kicked most other scheduling tools to the curb (except Tweetdeck, read below to see why). I also like that I can write a bunch of posts at one time, and choose which social profiles to send them to, and then Buffer will spread them out throughout the day or week based on a schedule I setup. Using their analytics you can even find the best time to tweet.

#2: Evernote

Evernote is so much more than a note taking tool. Sure, you can use it to write meeting notes and store your grocery list, but it acts more like a life management tool for me. Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your everyday life and it syncs across your computer, phone, tablet and the web.

Why I use it:

This is probably the tool I use the most often. I love that Evernote makes my life searchable. However, the key to Evernote is to commit to it and jump in with both feet. If you use it inconsistently then it isn’t that helpful. After using it for nearly two years, I’ve finally realized that the more you add to Evernote, the more useful it becomes. I never write things down on paper, but when I do I typically snap a picture to import it into Evernote.

#3: Tagboard

Tagboard is one of my new favorite social media tools. To describe it simply, Tagboard is a way to monitor keywords (a.k.a. hashtags) across multiple social media channels. When you search for hashtags it pulls in content from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine and Google+, then creates a custom board filled with content from all platforms.

Why I use it:

I use Tagboard mostly as a discovery tool or when I need to quickly search through the social web to see what is trending. It is also helpful when you are trying to curate content around a specific topic.

#4: Tweetdeck

TweetDeck is a social media dashboard application for management of Twitter accounts. You can organize and build custom timelines, keep track of lists, searches, activity and more—all in one interface. Additionally, you can get access to Tweetdeck through a Chrome web app. 

Why I use it:

I use Tweetdeck when I want to really dive into Twitter. I frequently use it at conferences to track conversations via hashtags and interact with others online. One of my favorite things about Tweedeck is that by utilizing lists and columns I can be extremely efficient when I login to browse tweets. Lastly, I sometimes use it to schedule tweets especially since it will auto expand images within Twitter natively (which increases the engagement rate on your tweets).

#5: Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a measurement tool that generates detailed statistics about a website’s traffic and traffic sources and measures conversions. A lot of Catholic organizations don’t have a way to measure whether their digital marketing efforts are working or not. Google Analytics is one of the best analytics tools out there and despite being free, Google keeps adding functionality to it which makes it better that most other paid tools. You can also setup goals, including visits, conversions, time spent on the site, etc.

Why I use it:

I use Google Analytics because it allows me to see how my sites are performing. Having this data give me the insight I need to make smarter marketing decisions. Did I mention it’s free? Also, it is extremely simple to set up.

I’m sure you have your own ideas about tools I’ve missed, or things you use that readers (and me) could benefit from. Please leave a comment below and lets discuss.

This year the CNMC was hosted by the Boston Archdiocese. My talk was focused on reaching millennial Christians. Instead of just posting my deck, here is a quick recap of the weekend (don’t worry, my slides are below too).

The day started out with Mass.

We were blessed to have Monsignor Paul Tighe as the Keynote speaker. Msgr Tighe is the Vatican’s Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

Msgr Tighe is one of a small team of people who helped get Pope Benedict on Twitter.

“People asked, how can you use 140 characters, to evangelize? However, we forget that Jesus did a lot with a little.” -Monsignor Paul Tighe

Msgr explained how the Vatican came to a “digital realization” that they needed to be present on social media. For me, it was amazing to hear how intentional they are with their social media strategy and how important it is for the pope to be on Twitter. (Follow the Pope @Pontifex) He spoke about the recent success of Pope Francis’ focus on the #prayerofrpeace in Syria. He also confirmed that the pope writes all his own tweets and has the highest percentage of retweets than any other public figure on Twitter. Lastly, Msgr shared that the Vatican has learned by doing and predicted that the online community will continue to evolve into church of the future.

Throughout the day folks from SQPN‘s Catholic Weekend podcast were live streaming.

My presentation was in the afternoon. My talk was on how to engage the millennial church through the use of digital media.

I discussed how the landscape of our culture has changed. Our message is more relevant than ever, but we as a church have to approach how we communicate differently (especially to millennial Christians).

Only 30% of Americans who were raised Catholic are still practicing.

From 1972 to 2010 the number of marriages celebrated in the Church decreased dramatically by nearly 60%.

–Forming Intentional Diciples by Sherry Waddel

Additionally, online communication has evolved. We now use our social graphs to find things and get recommendations.

SEE ALSO: Digital Strategy and Why You Need One (CNMC Presentation)

I explained that we need to approach Catholic communication just like a fortune 500 company would. With 1.2 billion Catholics in the world we are technically the largest “brand” in the world. So, we should treat our marketing efforts the same way.

View my slides here:

I had a blast. I got inspired and met some fantastic people. Now what? I think I have what my friend Maria calls the CNMC hangover.

Photos courtesy of Pilot New Media and Boston Catholic

Props to Dom and the Archdiocese of Boston for encouraging parishioners to “check in” on social networks when they visit church. This is a small, but powerful way to spread the good news. I regularly check-in to Church on Foursquare.

Some may say this reinforces a “holier than thou” mentality, but I would argue that it acts as a subtle reminder–a reminder of what is truly important, namely counting our blessing and thanking our Creator.

As Catholics we are called to be on mission and bring others to Christ. One Sunday, Fr. Tom Tank, one of my favorite priests from the Archdiocese of Kansas City, KS was preaching on evangelization. During his homily he said, “As priests, our jobs are to bring others to Christ, however we can only do so much. You all have a tremendous ability to evangelize, sometimes even more so than us priests.” As Father continued to talk, he spoke about how we can reach more people than a single priest simply because we are out in the world in our places of work and on the sidelines of our children’s soccer games.

Father’s sermon was a call to encourage us to be a witness to others.

Let’s be honest, striving to live the authentic Christian life is difficult. One might say it is even radical in today’s world.

Why is it important?

Well, when others see someone living their faith they are taken back by it. We should live our faith, but evangelization doesn’t need to be done in grandiose, dramatic ways.

Evangelization can be woven into our ordinary, daily interactions with others. More often than not, when it is approached this way, more people are apt to listen. Instead of being threatened by theological banter, they are invited into a conversation.

After all, isn’t this the point of the new evangelization.

[Tweet “Evangelization doesn’t need to be done in a dramatic way, it should be woven into our daily lives.”]

So despite the looks I get when I pull out my phone as I walk into mass, I will continue to check-in, because you never know when something will click for another person. Who know’s, a social post might be how Christ decides to call them home.

Some background: Back in June, Twitter rolled out “Twitter Cards,” its name for the multimedia you sometimes see in expanded tweets on Twitter.com and its native smart phone applications. Alright, back to yesterday: Twitter released the Lead Generation Card.

What is the Lead Generation Card?

Basically, this will allow marketers to collect leads directly within the tweet. Followers don’t even have to fill out a form because Twitter already has your info (name, @username and email). When someone expands your Tweet, they see a description of the offer and just clicks on a call-to-action button. It is that simple and the implications are HUGE.

Here’s what it looks like, courtesy of the Twitter Advertising blog:

Marketers can now develop very effective campaigns to aid with email acquisition. Twitter has tested this feature with a handful of brands, including New Relic (@newrelic), Full Sail (@fullsail) and Priceline (@priceline). According to Twitter, “many beta participants found the streamlined nature of the Lead Generation Card was instrumental in driving a low cost-per-lead compared to other technologies in their marketing suite.”

Okay, settle down there and take a deep breath. Currently the Lead Generation Card is only be available to Twitter’s managed advertising clients, but they have plans to launch this Card to everyone else soon.

An update to Twitter account security

Twitter has been under fire recently for some high-profile hacks. In an effort to increase security, Twitter added two-factor verification, which requires users to put in a second code along with their username and password. This part of a larger security plan that Twitter has implemented to help fix this.

Here’s how to set up login verification via the Twitter blog:

To get started, follow these steps:

1. Visit your account settings page.
2. Select “Require a verification code when I sign in.”
3. Click on the link to “add a phone” and follow the prompts.
4. After you enroll in login verification, you’ll be asked to enter a six-digit code that Twitter sends to your phone via SMS each time you sign in to twitter.com.

The Washington post has a good article about why you should turn two-factor verification on, and calls out other websites that have it. My recommendation? Turn it on. The extra security layer makes up for the small amount of inconvenience. However, keep in mind that nothing is as important as having a strong password. (This means length people, nothing shorter than 15 characters.)

Have comments or questions? Let me know in the comments below. You can follow me on Twitter @ppadley.

Author’s note: This was originally published on DEG’s blog.

My employer was recently picked up by KMBC Channel 9 in Kansas City to discuss how we approach the work/life balance conundrum. I was interviewed in this piece, watch the video HERE.

These fives news sources for me allow me to not get skewed information about the Church or any major news on Catholicism.

1. Vatican News – The official news site of the Vatican offers the faithful brief news articles on the Pope and the Church, videos of His Holiness and multiple news outlets. They tweet @newsva_en
2. National Catholic Register – The National Catholic Register began in Denver in the late 1920s as the Denver Catholic Register. Exchanging several hands, it eventually was purchased by EWTN from the Legionaries in January 2011. The paper prides itself on being a daily news outlet that is faithful to the Magisterium and professional in presentation. Amongst many supposed Catholic media companies, the NC Register remains a resource for faithful Catholics seeking to understand their Church and their world. It hosts a myriad of correspondents and gives opinion through their various and well-known bloggers. Follow NC Register on twitter @NCRegister
3. Catholic News Services – Catholic News Service serves the mission of the Church itself — to spread the Gospel through contemporary means of communication. Serving since 1920 as a news agency specializing in reporting religion, is the primary source of national and world news that appears in the U.S. Catholic press. Their website is a little outdated, but decent reporting. You can find them on twitter @CatholicNewsSvc
4. Rome Reports – Rome Reports is a great source for Catholic news videos. Updated on a regular basis, Rome Reports is faithful to the Church and reliable for up to date videos on Catholic news and papal events. Watch the best moments of Pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI and check out their twitter @romereports
5. Zenit – Zenit has some of the most comprehensive Vatican News coverage. When the Holy Father issues an Encyclical or Document it is online within 24 hours. It also prints important news on the international Church and comes in several languages. Follow them on twitter @zenitenglish

Update (for papal election & conclave coverage):

• Watch EWTN’s live coverage online of the Papal Conclave —> HERE. You can follow them on twitter @EWTN.
• Funny Twitter handles to follow conclave coverage:

#CONCLAVE EXPLAINED: cardinals’ votes burn in @conclavestove travel up @conclavechimney / @papalsmokestack. @papalsmoke sets off @popealarm.

— Popewatch2013 (@Popewatch2013) March 11, 2013

Stay away from the following:

National Catholic Reporter – Lovingly called the National Catholic Fishwrap by popular blogger Father Z and others, the supposed Catholic newspaper is a festering wound of heresy and dissent. I call it the National Catholic Distorter.

Mainstream Media “Faith Blogs” – Sites like the Huffington Post on Religion and the CNN Belief Blog are complete froth and generally only host those religious thinkers who are either atheists or angry ex-members of a given religion.

What are your favorite Catholic news sources?