Conference Web site:
Tool for spreading the kingdom

		Eye on the  Capitol  Kathy Markeland

"By divine favor, especially in modern times, human genius has produced from natural material astonishing interventions in the field of technology. Some of these have extraordinary bearing on the human spirit, since they open up new and highly effective avenues of communication for all kinds of information, ideas, and directives." (Decree on the Media of Social Communications, Second Vatican Council)

At the time of this decree of the Second Vatican Council in 1963, the world of mass communications was rapidly expanding, but the world had not yet heard of the Internet.

It is difficult to overstate the profound effect of the development of the Internet on our lives. In 1962 the Internet was merely an idea. In 1984 there were 1,000 computers connected.

By the time the Vatican came online in 1995 there were nearly 6,000,000 computers connected and today the number of those online has reached over 350,000,000 with over 19 million different World Wide Web domains registered for users to access.

The abundance of information on the Internet has proven, as the council foresaw in 1963, to be both a blessing and a curse: a blessing in that it empowers people to readily access a wide range of information and perspectives; a curse in that the information can become overwhelming, disorienting, and even dangerous.

Education efforts

The Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) jumped into the World Wide Web in 1997 by launching our first Web site, developed with the assistance of a unique ministry founded by the Jesuit Community in Milwaukee, Homeboyz Interactive.

For nearly a decade Homeboyz Interactive has trained young at-risk youth in Web technology industries. It has been our privilege to partner with them over these past many years and to see them grow into their new endeavor - a charter school.

Over the years, our Web site has evolved into a major tool for our education efforts. The public policy information and analysis modeled by the conference serves as a resource for Catholics as they seek to discern the moral dimensions of local, state, and federal public policy matters.

Of course the conference's education efforts in this regard predate the development of the Web, but the Internet has expanded vastly the reach of our efforts - as it has the other millions of Web sites vying for the attention of the public.

New Web site design

This month the WCC launched a new Web site at our www.wisconsincatholic.org address. While providing much of the information we have always provided, the new design makes navigation easier and provides some new flexibility and tools that will enhance our ability to communicate with Catholics in Wisconsin.

For 36 years the WCC has served as the public policy voice for the bishops and sought to bring the Catholic social teaching tradition into the public square and, in a special way, into our parishes and Catholic communities. With each new advance in technology we will continue to seek ways to reach out. It is our hope that the latest enhancement to our Web site proves to be an effective means of, in the words of the council, "spreading and supporting the Kingdom of God."

Kathy Markeland is associate director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference.