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Check out my post, Live-Blogging to Drive Traffic, Interest to Organizational Events, on Open Source Catholic. From the post:

The Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America conference is attended by over 6,000 teens every year, and there are many parents, friends, and other teens who wish they could participate as well. We have always posted information after the conference, but in St. Louis, for the past two years, we've started live-blogging and posting to social networks frequently throughout the conference, driving up traffic to our OYM websites.

We had triple the number of visitors this year than we had last year, and the residual traffic for this event is pretty strong, and keeps up interest for the event throughout the year.

This weekend and next I'll be live-blogging for the Office of Youth Ministry at Missouri State University, for the Steubenville St. Louis Mid-America youth conference. Check out the Live Blog here, and see photos from the first week of Steubenville on Flickr (I'll be updating all of these things as time goes on!).

(Above photo: Nikon D90 w/ 12-24mm f/4 lens).

Posted over on Open Source Catholic: Celebrating the Holy Mass from an iPad. (Original story on WDTPRS; please comment on the OSC post linked above).

[UPDATE: Post on the Archdiocesan website about the new Office of Web Development.]

At a meeting with the Archdiocesan Curia yesterday, Archbishop Carlson thanked everyone for their service in the Archdiocese, and he also talked about some changes that will be put in place in the next few months to help the Curia better serve Archdiocesan parishes and organizations.

One of these changes, which was not mentioned too strongly, but I think is very important, is the creation of the Office of Web Development.

Boston, MA - August 7, 2010. (Catholic New Media Conference Details | Registration).

I'm there.

The image above was taken at Spirit and Truth St. Louis' Thursday night Benediction, this week with Archbishop Robert J. Carlson (Archbishop of Saint Louis, MO).

Spirit and Truth is a community of young adults (there are many of them in the United States) focused on building life-giving relationships through study of Sacred Scripture, discussion of relevant issues, and, most centrally, through the worship of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. You can read more about Spirit and Truth St. Louis on their website.

Earlier today, I had lunch with a few good (mostly online) friends at Rigazzi's on the Hill (in St. Louis). The food was so-so, the company was great, and the atmosphere in the restaurant was pretty good. It's a little bit tucked away next to Kingshighway, but not too hard to find (plus there's plenty of parking in the area).

I met Snup (from Snup's view from the back pew) for the first time; she seems to have a most excellent plan in place for the rest of her parish visits. She's about 1/10 of the way through all the parishes in St. Louis, and she's chronicling her visits to various parishes on her blog (link above).

I also met (for the second time) Mark Scott Abeln, who takes many excellent pictures and writes for Rome of the West, an excellent blog looking at the historical and architectural heritage of Saint Louis (with an emphasis on its Catholicity).

[UPDATE: I've posted a more comprehensive guide that I intend to keep updated here: St. Louis-area Catholic Bloggers/Websites].

I've come to the realization that many St. Louis-area Catholics have no idea how many excellent blogs are published by other Catholics in the area. Here are the ones I know of - feel free to leave a link to any that I've missed in the comments below.

• Archdiocese of Saint Louis

  Obviously the main source of information for Archdiocesan events. I hear they're getting a site upgrade soon... more to come ;-)

• Saint Louis Catholic

  A great blog about timely news in the Archdiocese, with a bit of a traditional slant. Often uses colorful and entertaining language when discussing the current state of affairs.

Catholic News Live - a little site I whipped up yesterday afternoon. Still in early, early beta. If you're interested in joining and helping sort items into channels (and maybe other perks sooner or later), please email [email protected].

The following is a blog post I've written as part of the 'Support a Catholic Speaker' month, sponsored by the excellent Fallible Blogma, run by Matthew Warner (also founder of FlockNote.com).

Dr. Scott Hahn, a distinguished professor, father, husband, and convert to Catholicism, is arguably one of the greatest apologetical Catholic writers of the late 20th and early 21st century. Practically every book authored by Scott Hahn has been listed in the bestseller lists for Catholic books, and his frequent talks never fall on deaf ears.

He speaks and writes the truth and the Catholic faith. My first exposure to Scott Hahn's writing was his excellent book on the Eucharist, The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth, in which he explains the Eucharist from the perspective of a knowledgeable Biblical scholar, highlighting the significance and extreme importance of the Lamb of God throughout human history.