St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church
www.scborromeo.org

It so happens that my local parish is dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo, so this website caught my eye. Wow! St. Charles must be proud of these folks in Picayune, Mississippi. This website is a class act.

The pastor and parishioners of St. Charles have written two on-line books. First, there’s To Tell You the Whole Truth About the Church and the Holy Bible. This piece includes short essays on the origin of the Bible, the correct interpretation of the Bible (highlighting the many places where the Bible supports Catholic doctrine), a discussion of the canon of Scripture, and a cool list of things that are not in the Bible but our “Bible only” brethren believe and teach anyway.

Second, there’s I’m Glad You Asked, a collection of questions submitted by the parishioners of St. Charles Borromeo and well answered by the pastor, Fr. John Noone. At the end of each answer is a short reading list so that the interested reader can do some follow-up study. These two works are fleshed out in “Point Papers” that take individual topics — such as “Call No Man Father” and “Do You Earn Salvation?” — and expand on them.

While you’re browsing, take a virtual tour of this beautiful church, the largest in Mississippi. Check out the Tabernacle in this sanctuary!

It sure seems that if all parishes were this dynamic, solid, and evangelistic our troubles in the Catholic Church would be over. St. Charles Borromeo, pray for us!

Catholics United for the Faith
www.cuf.org

Catholics United for the Faith is a fine organization dedicated to equipping lay Catholics to live their faith and share it with others. Their site provides information about their full range of services, as well as a nice selection of their excellent resources.

CUF puts out a monthly magazine called Lay Witness, featuring articles from some of the top bishops, priests, and lay apologists in the country. The main articles from back issues of Lay Witness are available on the site. 

Another very valuable online resource is CUF’s repository of “Faith Facts.” These are detailed papers on individual topics of vital interest to Catholics, such as “Rock Solid — The Salvation History of the Catholic Church” and “Chosen In Him — The Catholic Teaching on Predestination.” There are currently over a hundred and forty “Faith Facts,” which are all available from the website to both members and non-members. You will need the Adobe Acrobat reader to view them.

For those burning questions that you just can’t get answered anywhere else, CUF offers their Information Services. A number of full-time apologists are available to answer your questions via a toll-free number (1-800-MY-FAITH). The modest membership fee to belong to CUF nets you a subscription to Lay Witness as well as access to the Information Service. Highly recommended.

Catechetical Resources.com
www.catecheticalresources.com

This website is geared toward professional catechists and all those with primary responsibility for running a religious education program at a school or parish. But this material can certainly be used with great benefit by individual educators, including homeschoolers.

The site focuses on two excellent catechetical series for children up through the eighth grade, Faith and Life and Image of God. Here you’ll find reviews of the curricula by actual users, fact sheets, sample lesson plans, and on-going discussion forums to enable users of these series to share ideas and pose questions to each other.

Also presented is the Love and Life series, a chastity-based education program for teens to help equip them to make right decisions when faced with tough moral challenges. It is truly a cause for rejoicing that there is now such high-quality and solidly orthodox Catholic catechetical material available.

The site presents a calendar of events that alerts you to any book fairs and Catholic education conferences that might be in your area. And there is a huge, searchable list of catechetical materials on a long list of individual topics so that you can find just the right resource. You can order many of these materials right from the website, and those with responsibility for Catholic schools can often order discounted review copies with which to evaluate the various programs.

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David Palm can be reached at djpalm64@yahoo.com