Yesterday, some of the Word on Fire team traveled with Brandon Vogt to Peoria, Illinois, for a special Mass celebrating Archbishop Fulton Sheen's recently declared "venerability." So, what exactly does that mean? Today, Rozann Carter takes a moment to reflect on the term and to share some photos from the event.
Venerable.
If I weren’t Catholic, I might think that was a sinister term (not unlike “notorious,” a term that I mistakenly used to describe St. Therese’s “Little Way” at one point in my time here at Word on Fire. Oops.). If I didn’t know better, my first impression would be that venerable could be used to depict the wily ways of a character off of one of the earlier, more kitschy versions of Batman. I’m thinking someone with a cape…
Well, at least I had the cape part right...
Catholic blogger, author and friend to Word on Fire Brandon Vogt launched his Africa eBooks Project to assist seminarians in Cameroon less than one month ago. In that short time, it has more than quadrupled its fundraising goal, teaching him a little something about the power of social media, as well as the cause it assisted. Vogt took time to answer some of our questions and update us on the success of his campaign.
It was a shot in the dark, a risk, an experiement.
Use New Media to boost the New Evangelization? Mix the digital with the divine? Help a group of priests a half a world away spread the Word?
Oh, yes.
Brandon Vogt managed to do all that, and do it in record time.
Last month, Vogt launched the Africa eBook Project, a new media fundraising “experiment” to furnish seminarians in Cameroon with a CD full of Catholic content to assist them in their vocation. Vogt set a goal to raise $4,000—enough to get each of the country's 2,000 priests-in-training a CD.
And boy, did he accomplish it.
“I had no idea we’d do it in nine hours,” Vogt said in a telephone interview of his staggeringly fast fundraising. “That’s ludicrous!”...