Website Redevelopment Message

CURRENT STATUS:

Catholic Legislative Network, October 2nd, 2011 - With the initiation of the Catholic Legislative Network at the Queen of All Saints Parish, work has started on a webpage relating to same. It will have links, etc. to their homesite.

The QAS Church website is steadily accomplishing its objective: To offer its readers current information that is easy to find and understand. As the site's webmanager, I am pleased that I have been able effect implementation and to help facilitate her progress. 

Together with our able church staff, we are now putting plans in place to expand and connect to the diocese level. My task is to ensure that we retain our unique identity; afterall, we are local community and our primary focus is just that, whereas the Oakland Diocese is large and diverse.

The Roman Catholic Church is "episcopal" in structure and organization, and yet has always provided local churches with the freedom and latitude to accomodate the local community. I have reaffirmed this for myself by visiting churches at the extreme ends of the globe from Hong Kong and Macau on the Asian Continent to Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, United Kingdom in Europe. 

The Roman Catholic Mass is essentially the same everywhere but for indigenous language, with a local flair. Not the best analogy, but McDonald's comes to mind - the burger and fries are the same, but you can get local goodies too!  

At Fr. Joseph's suggestion, a new Prayer Request section was recently added. It is our sincere hope that those with prayer needs, including our home-bound parishoners will find this interactive service beneficial and user-friendly.

A good website should be dynamic and ever-changing; at the same time, I feel it is my responsibility to excercise discipline and resist the possibility of allowing creativity overtake objectivity. Fare before flair as some would say...  

Website Objective:

Publish church-related information that is practical and useful to the site’s visitors, especially to Catholic Community and our own parishioners. Queen of All Saints Church has a limited staff and human resources; it is our desire that useful and important information is readily available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This website should serve that need.

I welcome your input and suggestions. All good ideas will be considered, and the most popular ideas will be streamlined and incorporated as part of the redevelopment effort.

Special request: If you have digital pictures (jpeg format) of our church before the renovation, I would like to display them on this site.

Please drop me a line via email with your thoughts, or talk to me after Mass on Sundays. You can find me in the choir.

Note on political discussion: There are literally zillions of websites and blogs that provide a forum for political discourse. For every opinion, there will be a myriad of varying opinions. I firmly believe that true religion exists on a plane high above politics. Faith in God is eternal, whereas politics exists only in the immediate.  We are however actively participating in the Catholic Legislative Network in order to keep our parishioners informed and better prepared to participate in the law-making process.

Thank you and may God's Peace be with you.

Michael Souza

webmanager@qaschurch.org