I had an amazing time at the Catholic New Media Celebration this past weekend in San Antonio! I met so many awesome, inspiring, fun people who are doing a lot of very cool things in Catholic new media. And the conference was very well run.
You can see us on the local news here! flockNote.com and I even made the cut!
Fr. Roderick kicked things off by handing off the emcee position to Mac Barron, of Catholic in a Small Town. I got to meet and hang out with Mac and his wife for a bit. They are, respectfully, hilarious and delightful. Mac did an excellent job as emcee.
The first keynote speech was an inspiring one by Fr. Dwyer of Busted Halo.
Patrick Madrid had an equally awesome keynote speech later on. Check out his Envoy Institute. I had the honor of speaking with him later on at dinner. He’s extremely friendly and generous. It was very cool speaking to a guy I’ve looked up to for awhile now.
Sidenote: He’s got 11 kids. Which is impressive. And if one of them becomes a priest/religious and the other 10 have an average of 8 kids each…he’ll have 80 grandchildren. Which is even more impressive. And, just hypothetically speaking here, if 1/8 of those grandchildren become priests or religious and the other 7/8 have an average of 8 children each…then, well, he will have 560 great grandchildren, and 81 priests or religious as his direct descendants. And the world will be better for it.
You’ll notice I don’t have any pictures of me with Patrick Madrid. That’s because I’m a slacker photo taker (I won’t call myself a photographer). I met a lot of really cool people at this conference, but only remembered to take pictures at a few rare moments. Here are those pics (below). You can find video of a lot of the best parts of the conference on the SQPN website here. I can’t wait till next year!
Me and Danielle Bean from Faith and Family Live.
Me and Jeff Geerling from Open Source Catholic and LOLSaints.com.
Joe McClane of The Catholic Hack.
Me and Lisa Hendey of CatholicMom.com.
Sarah Bauer performed live with her husband, Chris Sansone. Really great couple with some awesome music!
I met so many other awesome people too and I hope to see them all again soon. Most of all, I look forward to working together with them all as one Church in the world of New Media.
Special thanks to Fr. Roderick and the SQPN crew who made the conference possible. Great things are coming and will continue to come from it. Great job!
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Matthew, so totally great to meet and spend time with you in person. Wasn’t it a terrific weekend? I expect great things to happen in Catholic new media in the next year thanks to the fact that we were all able to make so many great connections.
When do we leave for DC?
Thanks to your wife too, for sharing you with us!
Hey Matthew,
I wish I could have been there too. Maybe next year. It was fun seeing your photos and reading your post.
God bless!
Donna-Marie
It was great to finally meet you there! Hope to see you again soon, and definitely hope to work with you to make Flocknote et all even better!
I would like to second Lisa’s thank you to your wife. We just got a glimpse of the great blessing she has at home!
BTW, impressive mathematical Catholicism. It cracked me up.