007 :
09 Jan 2012

Our 25 most read commentaries in 2012... It has long been apparent that most of the activity on Catholica does not take place on the forum — and people reading the current commentaries — but way down in the archives of Catholica where people are quietly sussing out opinions we published long ago. As you'll find Australian Catholic University lecturer, Dr Ian Elmer, continues to be one of the stars of the show. We've remarked in the past that if a person followed Ian's commentaries on Catholica diligently you'd be doing the course work for a Bachelor's or Master's tertiary education degree. This year we have established a new benchmark with one of Ian's commentaries being accessed 37,946 times last year. As impressive as that statistic is, the most visited page on Catholica is our forum index page which received 4,017,716 visits last year. [Read the front page we published on 26 Jan 2013]

008 :
06 Apr 2012

Good Friday Reflections 2012... On this, the most solemn day in the Christian liturgical calendar, we invite you to pause a while and reflect on the meaning we are invited to take from the injustice connected with the arrest, trial, humiliation, punishment and crucifixion inflicted on the One we worship as the Son and Emissary of the Trinitarian God. To assist in your reflection we republish a number of audio visual reflections from YouTube which we originally published in 2009 and also a hugely popular thread on our forum from that year reflecting on the meaning of this day and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. You might care to further contribute to the active reflection we started on the Catholica Forum back in 2009. The audio-visual reflections can be found at the link at the end of this introduction and you will find the reflection members of the Catholica Community have been building on our forum HERE. [more]

007 :
09 Jan 2012

Our 25 most read commentaries in 2011... There are some big surprises but also, as happened in previous years, it is actually commentaries that we first published a few years ago that continue to rate very highly — some of them with surprising readership stats. What drives this are issues that become important in the wider world and search engines link into where someone has been discussing those issues on Catholica. [Read the front page we published on 09 Jan 2012]

006 :
12 Apr 2009

The most read commentaries in 2009... We kicked off the countdown of the most read commentaries of 2009 by taking a more detailed look at how one commentator is appreciated by Catholica readers. The particular commentator whose work we examined was Dr Andrew Kania. The 140 commentaries Dr Kania has written for Catholica since 2007 were read a total of 57,754 times during the past year. [Read the front page we published on 11 Jan 2010]

005 :
12 Apr 2009

Easter Sunday 2009... No lead commentary today but if you are seeking something to reflect on there is a mountain of thoughtful posts in the forum from members of the Catholica Community — so much in fact that I've been getting messages in that people can't cope with it all. [Today's email] | [Holy Week Reflections]

004 :
10 Apr 2009

Reflections for Good Friday 2009... On this, the most solemn day in the Christian liturgical calendar, we invite you to pause a while and reflect on the meaning we are invited to take from the injustice connected with the arrest, trial, humiliation, punishment and crucifixion inflicted on the One we worship as the Son and Emissary of of the Trinitarian God. To assist in your reflection we have chosen a number of audio visual reflections from YouTube or we invite you to contribute to the active reflection we have been building on the Catholica Forum in recent days. The audio-visual reflections we have found on YouTube can be found HERE and you will find the reflection members of the Catholica Community have been building on our forum HERE. [more]

003 :
25 Dec 2008

Happy Christmas 25 Dec 2008... On the front page of our website today you will find an animated version of our Christmas Greeting. I hope it is entertaining as well as drawing attention to the real importance of what we are celebrating today. As well as an entertainment, the animation is interactive — you can get the gnomes, Father Christmas, my Ocker alter ego and even the baby Jesus to speak in whatever order you choose. One of the gnomes though will light up but will not speak. If you are the first to unlock the secret code sequence that will allow him to speak and you can get an email back to me with the code numbers he gives you, you'll be able to choose books, cds or other gifts to the value of $AU100 on offer in the Catholica Online Gift Shoppe we'll be opening early in the near year — around the time entries in this competition close. You'll find more details, and the rules for this private competition only open to subscribers to Catholica and registered members of our forum on the front page of our website. If you have young people at your house in the next few days you might keep them amused for a few hours trying to crack the code you need to get the last gnome to speak. Enjoy your Christmas day. [more]

002 :
03 Aug 2006

Our First Public Edition of Catholica: 3 August 2006... In the first public edition of Catholica, Brian Coyne, editor and founder of Catholica, offered a video introduction to what we hoped to achieve with this new web initiative. [the first public edition formatted with today's style] | [close to how it originally appeared] | [the first public email 3 Aug 2006]

001 :
03 Jun 2006

Our First Commentary: 3 June 2006... Tom Scott, the pseudonym of the editor and founder of Catholica, Brian Coyne, wrote and published our first commentary on 3 June 2006. The commentaries produced up until our public launch on 3 August 2006 were only circulated to a private email list while we ironed out some of the technical issues with Catholica. [the first commentary formatted with today's style] | [close to how it originally appeared] | [the first email 1 June 2006] | [the first public email 3 Aug 2006]