Site Seeing - David Palm

Faith, Hope and Clarity on the Web
Your road map for exploring Catholic Web sites on the information superhighway.

Et Cum Spiritu Tuo
www.cwo.com/~pentrack/catholic/
The rendition of "Amazing Grace" on Hammond organ that greeted me on entering David Pentrack's Et Cum Spiritu Tuo site made me wonder if I was back in the Baptist Sunday School of my youth. But not to worry, Et Cum Spiritu Tuo turned out instead to be a good example of a well-balanced and user-friendly Catholic Web site. Here the Web surfer will find a nice mix of devotional material, apologetics, reference material, and links to other interesting sites.

A section on spiritual growth has well-written and illustrated materials on the life of prayer, the place of sacramentals and other devotions in one's spiritual life, and a particularly good essay on the Charismatic Renewal movement. In the reference section, one finds, among other things, a fascinating and useful Christian chronology (albeit with a few entries influenced by modernist presuppositions) from A.D. 1 to the present. There is also a nicely outlined apologetics section with links to important treatments of a host of topics.

I was very interested in the online prayer book, which contains the text of many important Catholic prayers, along with some less familiar ones. And there is a carefully chosen selection of links to other Catholic Web sites, making Et Cum Spiritu Tuo a good starting place for the beginner in either Web surfing or Catholic apologetics.

The Catholic Converts' Connection
www.cin.org/users/jbrewer/convert
Does the current turmoil in the Catholic Church get you down sometimes? Does your faith need a boost once in a while? Well, the ability of converts to the Catholic Faith to rouse and inspire us seems limitless, so point your browser to J. Brewer's Catholic Converts' Connection and get a dose of hope.

Brewer has put together a site on which prospective or actual converts to the Catholic Faith can share their stories. The diversity of the backgrounds from which people enter the Catholic Church is simply amazing, proof in itself of the infinite power and scope of God's grace. People from every imaginable religious background, or none at all, have shared their stories on this Web site.

Another great service rendered by Catholic Converts' Connection is the ability for someone who is exploring the Catholic Faith to receive some guidance from other Catholics who click on their e-mail "link" and share some of their own experience or knowledge. The latest entries in the guest book are quite recent, so the site is plenty active to warrant a peek every couple of weeks or so. And there are archives available that could keep one reading a new conversion story a day for many months.

Peter's Net
www.trincomm.org
Peter's Net sports some unique resources for Catholics. Most prominent is a Catholic Web site search engine. Web-wide search engines like Yahoo easily inundate one with too many "hits," many of which don't pertain to your desired topic. Peter's Net's search feature allows you to peruse an ever-expanding list of specifically Catholic Web sites for the information you need. These sites are reviewed by the Trinity Communications staff for fidelity to Catholic teaching, quality of resources, and implementation, which allows one to surf the Web more intelligently and safely.

Peter's Net also offers specialized databases. For instance, the soon-to-be-released "History Research Database" by Dr. Warren Carroll, containing searchable notes that he's compiled while writing his monumental six-volume Church history.

Very useful for finding info on topics of current interest are the archives of the Catholic World News. For example, a quick search on "mediatrix" netted four recent articles related to the proposed Marian doctrinal definition.

For a modest fee one can subscribe to Catholic World News and receive daily news updates via e-mail.