Philadelphia’s cardinal is just a click away

mcclatchy newspapers

Back in 2007, Cardinal Justin Rigali was hailed as the first Roman Catholic prelate to share video messages on YouTube.

The leader of Philadelphia’s 1.5 million Catholics now has a fan page on Facebook, which includes links to his homily in English and French from the Mass for victims of the earthquake in Haiti; video from the Catholic Social Services Christmas party; and a link to his column in the Catholic Standard & Times.

The cardinal seems to be ahead of the curve.

On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI issued a message challenging priests “to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources [images, videos, animated features, blogs, Web sites], which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization, and catechesis.”

What’s next, you might ask: Catechism through Twitter? In fact, the archdiocese is on Twitter, at www.twitter.com/ArchCommPhila.

A spokeswoman says archidiocese workers, not the cardinal himself, update the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/cardinalrigali.