September 10, 2011 – Lubbock, Texas
I’d like to begin these first comments by introducing myself. Many of you have wondered who this person is, who has such a nice website and blog.
My name is Fr. Joseph Noonan, OFM. I am a member of the Franciscan Order, one of the many orders within the Catholic Church. I have been a priest for 24 years and a Franciscan for 30 years.
I started this website to promote the Catholic Faith Radio Program, which is broadcast each Friday in Lubbock, TX. The reader must know that I do none of the technical work on this site. I have hired a local computer programmer to do all of this work. Many of you have commented on how nice the site looks and functions. That is do to my programmer. He has done, and continues to do, an excellent job. He makes suggestions about almost everything (which I am glad he does) and I either approve or disapprove it. The fact is, on the technical side, I am a student and he is the teacher. The real decision-making is in the content of the site.
As you can see, the site presently consists of past radio programs and documents. I will be adding much more in the coming weeks and months. I simply ask that you please be patient. It is important to understand that I have more duties than maintaining this site and blog.
I am a pastor of a Catholic Church parish in Lubbock and four Mission churches scattered from Lafayette, LA to Buena Park, CA. In addition, I host The Catholic Faith Radio Program each Friday. The result is, I stay quite busy but am not complaining.
As the website was being built in the spring (2011), I had not thought about adding a spot for blog comments, thus creating a so-called web-blog. My programmer mentioned it, and I thought the idea was fine. I had never taken part in blogging before, and wasn’t sure what to expect.
Somewhere in mid-July the bloggers began to leave comments. At first there were only a few. Within a week or two, the numbers increased. Frankly, I was amazed the site was garnering so much attention so quickly. By mid-August the traffic easily doubled and had continued to increase overall since then. Yes, the daily numbers are up and down, but he trend is upward.
The overall content of the comments is, as you can well see, is quite positive. For this I am very thankful. I am glad to make available material which has been concealed from the average Catholic for many years. That, in fact, was the purpose of putting the different documents and articles on the site, i.e., to educate those interested persons. More documents will be uploaded soon.
Many of you have asked about the origin of these documents. It must be understood that several of them were written by the Popes of the Catholic Church (Quo Primum and Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio are examples). I have included them so as to educate the Catholic about the situation in the Church today. If you are a Catholic and believe everything is just fine in the Church today, then you need to read the material on this site more than ever.
I wrote one of the articles on this site, “A Response to a Modernist.” If you have ever wondered about the “strange” ideas of your local bishop, perhaps you should read the article. I know it’s quite long, but is well worth the time. It explains the rampant heresies on the diocesan level. I will be putting more of my articles on the site in the future, articles which are pertinent to the theme of this site.
Audio and video sermons will be coming soon. I hope you find them spiritually helpful.
One final thought for today: take time to listen to the radio programs. Many people over the nearly 4 years we have been on the air, have told me they have found the program to be quite educational. That is the first purpose of this program. Not everyone will agree with the content, but that is to be expected. I ask you in all kindness, listen and learn.
Feel free to respond to these comments on either the blog or via email, father@catholichour.org.
May God bless you all,
Fr. Joseph, OFM