R.A.G.E. Media

Aquinas and More Catholic Books, the Internet’s largest Catholic bookstore, has added PickAFig voting buttons to many of the items in their store.

PickAFig users and Aquinas and More customers can now recommend books and products to others with ease, as I have done with this recommendation of Christopher West’s Theology of the Body for Beginners.

When “picking” a product, be sure to take the time to write why you recommend that particular product or book.

If you happen upon a product that you like that has already been “picked” you can simply add your vote!

Books and products can be posted in PickAFig to either the category the product belongs or to the “Books and Products” category.

Political Satirist Stephen Colbert has caught my attention more and more. My brother introduced me to the show, and I’ve been catching clips and episodes from time to time on ColbertNation.com and Hulu.com.

Yes, he’s funny and over-the-top, but I’ve noticed more and more Catholic bloggers linking to his clips. Many times, it seems, he is expressing on a secular cable network (Comedy Central, for crying out loud - home to some of the worst trash on television) matters of faith and morals that get everyone laughing. Is this part of the new evangelization? Is it intentional, or just for the laughs?

Either way, it takes gall in this day in age to say that you like Pope Benedict XVI “better as JP2’s Rottweiler,” condemn ecumencalism as a watering down of one’s own faith, and recite the Nicene Creed on the air of the same nationwide network that airs South Park.

Or even more, to tell the Anglican Church to their face (in front of millions of people) that a return to unity with Rome is in order, and that however they want to spin it, their Church was founded by a promiscuous king who didn’t like the Church reinforcing the 10 commandments.

Sure, he likes to make pope jokes - but even then you can recognize his understanding of Church teachings:

He can also ask intelligent questions when he has clergy on the show:

When Rev. Hagee criticizes the Catholic Church, he calls in William Donohue of the Catholic League to pinch-hit in expressing outrage:

On the negative side, I did read on CatholicColbert.com that Colbert is pro-contraception - meaning there is some more dialog that needs to be had with him still.

A bit of background on Colbert - he was the youngest (that explains a lot) of 11 children in a Catholic family. At age 11, he lost his father and 2 of his brothers in a plane crash, which devastated his faith. In time, he came back to the Church and is now a practicing Catholic and Sunday School teacher. You can read more on his life in this article from Parade Magazine and this extra information from the interview.

Special thanks to CatholicColbert.com for providing a lot of links to these videos and info - and since that site is down, thanks to Google Cache for letting me still get to the content.

Someone posted this on PickAFig; and while it is 2 years old it is still relevant.

Stephen Colbert addresses, through his criticism of Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey in 2006, the ecumenical movement. Or more specifically, the lack of strength and commitment shown in the current ecumenical movement throughout Chrisitianity. It’s not bigotry to think yourself right and another wrong, as G.K. Chesterton said - it’s assuming that you cannot be wrong that makes you a bigot. For all his showmanship, notice that even Colbert admits that he “hopes” he is right, but pulls no punches in asserting that if both Christianity and Muslims cannot be completely right. But he’s no bigot, at least according to Chesterton.

We should be a bit more assertive in our own beliefs, or simply cave to another. Yes, we should work toward peace, but not by capitulating our own beliefs, lest we lose our identity. This doesn’t just go for Catholics or even religious beliefs - if you are too willing to believe that everyone can’t possible be wrong, you really have nothing to add to inter-faith discourse or any debate for that matter.

Oh, and when Colbert breaks out into the “speed creed” (excerpt of the Nicene Creed) it is simply jaw-dropping that this was aired on Comedy Central.

If you haven’t found your way over to PickAFig.com, the Catholic Social Bookmarking Site, I highly suggest you take the time to check it out if you are interested in increasing the readership of your blog or website.

Here are a few tips for using the new tool, which also apply for websites like Digg and del.icio.us - although those sites are not Catholic and it can be difficult to get noticed there.

1) Submit your own stories to PickAFig. Also, vote for your own stories if someone else submits them. There’s nothing wrong with self-promoting, since you can only vote once per article anyway. Besides, how can new readers find you if you don’t tell them on a directory like PickAFig that you have content worth reading?

2) Put a PickAFig button on your blog posts. If you put a PickAFig button on your blog template, it will automatically show on each post. It serves as a reminder to your readers to vote for your story and/or submit it, and it shows off your more popular posts at a glance.

3) Don’t pass up the free incoming link. To get better rankings in the search engines, you need to have quality incoming links. That is, links that are relevant to your content from other sites that are similar in content to your own site. PickAFig, being faithfully Catholic and pro-life, can provide those links… but you or your readers have to submit your stories!

4) Vote on other stories, and discuss other posts. Your profile name and link shows when you vote or comment on other stories, and if you comment enough you’ll show up on the “Top Comments” list. Your profile should provide a link back to your site, and will also include links to stories you submitted.

Also, this is free networking with other writers; if someone sees that you voted for their story, they may be curious about what it is you write and submit. Thus, they will be introduced to your content.

5) Get over Writer’s Block. Can’t think of a topic? Browse PickAFig and see what everyone else is talking about. You may have missed a tidbit of news, or get inspired by someone else’s post.

6) Recruit more PickAFig members. The more people that participate on PickAFig, the more people will see your posts on the site. Consider browsing Catholic directories such as catholicblogs.blogspot.com, Saint Blog’s Parish, or stblogs.net and finding posts you like, and submitting them on PickAFig. Then, let the blogger know that you liked their post so much you submitted it on PickAFig.