Catholic Bloggers Meet in Rome-May 2, 2011

Sad, but true—I am not one of the 150 Catholic bloggers gathering in Rome today at the invitation of the Pontifical Councils on Culture and Social Communications. But I was one of the 750 Catholic bloggers worldwide who requested an invitation. It was fun to dream and I am pleased to say that I am familiar with a few of the people who were invited.

Anna Arco is the chief feature writer for the Catholic Herald in the U.K. She was one of the first people I followed on Twitter. Here are her comments published soon after the meeting was announced on the opportunity it presents for Catholic bloggers. Catholic Bloggers of the World Unite.

Rocco Palmo is the author of the well known blog Whispers in the Loggia where he has been posting his reports and commentary about Church events since 2004. Rocco writes that this meeting will be viewed from two different perspectives. One view is that this is as an encouraging sign that social media is being given greater attention by Church leadership. He writes,

Considering the standard fare of Vatican culture, that something like this is coming from the top is all the more notable and edifying — indeed, even astonishing.

The other view will be that the short one-day program (in comparison with the week-long Congress for the “established” media six months ago) points to the second class status of social media in the official world of Catholic communications—a judgment he leaves to others. You can read his entire post on these perspectives here: “Benvenuto, Blogosfero”: At the Vatican, a New Media Meet-Up

Lisa Hendey is a wife, mother of two teenage sons, an author, podcaster and blogger at Catholic Mom.com. You also may recognize her name as occasional commenter here on Catholic Web Solutions. In this blog, she shares how surprised and delighted she was to learn about her invitation to the Vatican Blogger Meeting.

From what I know of these three bloggers, we will get a good picture about the meeting and their interactions with Catholic bloggers from all over the world. Hopefully they will find time to keep us updated in real time with their comments on Twitter @annarco, @roccopalmo, @lisahendey.

What are your thoughts about this meeting?