Continuing journalism

A lot of people have asked me in the past months… “so are you giving up on journalism?”

To that my answer is always a resounding NO. As I wrestled with the idea of entering the seminary one of my biggest issues and reasons why I decided to enter was trying to find a balance between living out my Catholic faith at the same time as my passion for journalism.

I did some work for mainstream coverage of religion as well as Catholic Press. Up to this point what I have discerned is that the best way for me to approach journalism would be as a Catholic priest. I feel that this way there are no hidden biases or anything like that, and I can freely live out my faith, while at the same time continuing to produce journalism product.

Obviously right now I don’t know exactly how that will play out, but that’s not my biggest concern. I know that I will have the opportunity to use my gifts and passion for journalism to help better the church.

Fortunately, I will still have the opportunity to practice and develop some of these skills while at Conception. The school has a quarterly magazine, Web site, and Facebook page. After meeting with the Director of Communications for the Abbey/Seminary yesterday, I was very excited.

There is a team forming of students who will cover all seminary events, just as journalists would cover events for a local paper. We will then send all photos and stories to the Director who will determine where to publish them, with most of them ending up on the Web site.

To me the idea of being able to give these gifts back to the Church for the purpose of New Evangelization, the term used by previous popes and my role model John Cardinal Foley, of Philadelphia, brings me great joy and peace.

As with all of my other previous journalistic endeavors, I will post links to stories here on this site so that you can see some of the work that I will continue to do here at the seminary.