Hurricane Katrina, Mother Teresa, 9/11 Anniversary and Pet Blessings
by John Feister

(If you don’t have time to read this now, please take note of the buttons on the right. They are free for the taking, for you to use on your Web site. Click on a button to pick up the html code.)

Q U I C K S C A N

Parish Site of the Month
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The devastation and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina call for solidarity from all of us. People on or near various parts of the Gulf Coast of the United States, including the entire city of New Orleans, will be putting their lives together in the coming months. Many will be helped by Catholic agencies, including Catholic Charities USA (a network of Catholic Church-based social service agencies), Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Knights of Columbus and Catholic Extension. If you’d like to help your Web visitors donate to reputable charities that will provide hurricane relief, feel free to place our button on your web page. It links to our news feature with the latest hurricane relief news from Catholic News Service, which has links to the various Catholic agencies who are helping.

We have several other regularly scheduled Web features to offer. Our annual feature on Blessed Mother Teresa includes biographical information, articles, links to several books and a radio interview with her longtime friend and founder of the Lay Missionaries of Charity, Father Sebastian Vazhakala. Her feast day is celebrated September 5.

September 11 marks the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, which cost thousands of lives. You can place a link to our commemorative feature on your site to allow your visitors a way to remember the event an honor those families directly affected.

Finally, I encourage you to look ahead to October 4, the feast of St. Francis. We’ll run our annual “pet blessing” feature, which includes the only national listing that we know of pet blessing services. If you know of any services in your area, please contact us and we’ll include it.

God bless!

John Feister
Editor, AmericanCatholic.org

Parish Site of the Month

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Archdiocese of Denver)
This parish Web site provides a weekly meditation on the home page, readings in both English and Spanish, a listing of upcoming events and facility schedule. Browse for content using the horizontal javascript navigation that keeps the site’s many pages organized and easily accessible, and be sure to check out the collection of online forms provided. Users can register (or update existing registration), submit bulletin announcements and prayer requests, reserve rooms and sign up for service projects online.

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Today’s Catholic Teacher
With schools starting up, educators might want to take a look at the Web site for Today's Catholic Teacher, a magazine addressing the needs of teachers in private and Catholic schools. CatholicTeacher.com provides featured articles on technology in the classroom, a “School of the Month” and educator development. It also offers a wealth of links to help visitors with academic research, fundraising projects and searches for classroom materials, audio-visual products, books and software.

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