Thank you and more

We want to thank everyone who responded to our request last month to send in a post card expressing your wishes whether you want to continue receiving the South Texas Catholic. We received thousands of replies.

The replies mirrored what we expected. The vast majority wishes to continue receiving the magazine. Of those who indicated they no longer wanted to receive the magazine, we received the kinds of responses we anticipated; some said they were moving, some said the addressee had passed away, some said they were getting multiple copies and some said they prefer reading it online.

While the response was gratifying, we are again asking those of you who have not yet responded to do so. One respondent’s suggestion alerted us to the fact that we, perhaps, had not made one point clear. The writer suggested we just call everyone and clarify their address status. We mail out more than 47,000 magazines, so calling them would be prohibitive.

A couple of thousand responses, while gratifying, do not address our concern completely. This month we have again included the post card for those that still have not responded. To be clear, we will continue to mail the magazine to everyone who has made a contribution to the South Texas Catholic Appeal and to the Catholic Stewardship Appeal over the last five years. Your magazine does not include a post card. The same is true for all those who sent in their post cards last month.

Only readers who did not respond last month or who have not contributed to the appeals in the last five years will receive a post card with their magazine. This will be your last opportunity to inform us of your desire to continue receiving the magazine.

Continuing the practice we established last year, this edition is a combined issue for August and September. There will not be a magazine in September. Our next issue will be in October.

We will use the brief respite to catch up on some internal housekeeping, including issuing the latest Catholic Directory. We will also look at ways on how to continue to improve the South Texas Catholic, both the print and Web editions.

The South Texas Catholic also produces two internal weekly electronic newsletters, maintains four diocesan Web sites as well as the diocese’s social media accounts. We also oversee video and podcast production for our Web sites. We are also in the midst of developing an intranet site.

As you can see, this month “off” will not be without work. It will be an opportunity to refresh our products so that they are the best they can be. We ask your continued prayers for our ministry of spreading the Word to every corner of God’s kingdom assigned to the Diocese of Corpus Christi.