Adjustments and Stuff

I am in the process of changing the layout of the blogs. Instead of 2 sidebars, there will be just one.

I have made the page wider, and the posts will be more-so on the left side of the blog.

The blog lists, or links to all Faith of the Fathers blogs and my favorite Catholic blogs can be found on the right hand sidebar by scrolling down the page.

Also, new is an Amazon store called "Faith of the Fathers Catholic Books and More", which can be accessed by clicking the name that is just below the header (description box) near the top of the page. There will be books, Bibles, DVD’s and more for sale, that re;ate to the different areas of the blogs. They include Catholic Mass, Catholic Saints, Fathers of the Church, and more.

I have also added a home page for the blogs, and in it's main (and only) post is a list of all the most recent blog posts. Each has a small "snippet" from the blog post. You can click the title of the snippet, and it will take you to the full post.

I hope this gives the blogs a cleaner look, and is better for all the readers and followers of Faith of the Fathers.

Yes, Virginia, I Do Have A Blog Roll

Some long time readers and followers of "Faith of the Fathers Blogs" are probably familiar with the items in our sidebars. However, many who only read the blog posts with a feed/news reader or a mobile device (such as an iPhone) never see the sidebar items (which is why you should visit us with a computer occasionally) at all.

In particular, I want to call your attention to the sidebar item (on the right hand side bar) "MY FAVORITE BLOGS (LISTED BY MOST RECENT POST)". This is more or less a blog roll, where I link to some good, solid Catholic blogs and bloggers that you may not be aware of, and would find good reading (when your not here, that is) and good information as well.

The two newest additions are the Catholic apologist Tim Staples, and his blog, appropriately entitled, "Tim Staples", and Father Tim Finigan's blog, "The hermeneutic of continuity". Both are well worth the time to read, as are all the blogs listed there quite frankly..

There are also a lot of well known blogs and bloggers listed here as well as some well known Catholics whom you may not have been aware of as also having blogs.

These include Timothy Cardinal Dolan's "The Gospel In The Digital Age"; Father Robert Barron's "Word On Fire"; Father John Zuhlsdorf's "Fr. Z's Blog" (formerly called "What Does the Prayer Really Say?"); Priests for Life's "Father Frank Pavone's Blog"; Father Juan Velez's (author of "Passion For Truth: The Life of John Henry Newman) blog "Cardinal John Henry Newman"; Jimmy Akin's blog, “Jimmy Akin”; Sofia Guerra's “Always Catholic”; Lisa Graas' “Catholic Bandita”; Taylor Marshall's “Taylor Marshall”; and more than I have time to post about here.

As I said, all have great posts, not just the ones I mentioned here, but all of them that are in "MY FAVORITE BLOGS (LISTED BY MOST RECENT POST)" on the right hand sidebar. Give their stats a boost and visit them all. You won't regret it!

Changes In Faith of the Fathers Blogs Effective January 1, 2013

Effective January 1, 2013, Faith of the Fathers blogs will reduce the number of "active" blogs, from 24 to 10.

Beginning January 1, the 14 that will no longer be posted to, will be listed as "Older Faith of the Fathers Blogs" as a link list at the very bottom of each blogs left hand sidebar. Those blogs will not be deleted, they will just no longer have any new posts added to them.

A decision to delete them entirely may come at a later date, as the 14 have very little to no traffic at all.

The 10 blogs that will remain active are as follows: 

Faith of the Fathers, Saint Quote of the Day, Daily Mass Readings, Approved Apparitions, Saints of the Faith, Pope Benedict XVI, Favorite Prayers And Scripture , Prayer Requests, The Early Church Fathers, and Apologetics.

These 10 are the blogs that have the most traffic and subscriptions, with the exception of the Prayer Requests blog. I will not remove it, as it is a blog I feel that is, and has been very helpful to many people.

In any case, thank you all for reading, following, and subscribing to these blogs.

A Minor Change Or Two

I made a couple of changes to the blogs (most have the changes) and wanted to let "Faith of the Fathers" readers know about them.

First of all, I have taken the Welcome Page, Privacy Policy, etc., from the sidebar and moved them to the top of page as tabs located just under the title header of each blog. You can click the picture to enlarge it if you like.

I think it makes them more noticeable, especially since some advertisers whose ads appear on these blogs require a  "Privacy Policy" on websites and blogs where their ads appear.

The second change was for the "blogroll" or bloglists for Faith of the Fathers Blogs and My Favorite Catholic blogs, etc.. The list of favorite blogs was getting longer and longer, and as a result the load times for the blogs was also getting longer and longer.

This is the new "look" for the blogs lists and for the links for Faith of the Fathers blogs as well. Yes, just a good old fashioned scroll bar. The most  recently updated blogs appear first in the list, which means a blog showing listed first now, may not be a few minutes later. No blogs have been removed from the list, you just have to scroll down to find them.

This has made the pages load a bit faster (or so it seems to me, anyway), and prevents a l-o-n-g list taking up an entire sidebar.

I hope this makes the blogs better, and I appreciate all the subscribers and regular readers of Faith of the Fathers blogs.

One last thing, we now have a Facebook Page for "Faith of the Fathers" blogs, which you can go to here, and click the "Like" button. We still have our Group on Facebook here as well. Both get regular "updates" for new posts on all of our blogs, so if you are on Facebook you might want to join the group or "Like" our new page.

Once again, thank you to all of our readers and subscribers. We appreciate your support.

Vote For the 2011 Bloggers Choice Awards

The time is right to vote for the 2011 Bloggers Choice Awards. Once again, I was nominated by some kind soul and I do appreciate it!

However, I would like to ask all of the readers to the Faith of the Fathers Blogs, to vote for my favorite Catholic blog, "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" by Father John Zuhlsdorf, known as Father Z to those who regularly read his blog. 

I never miss a day reading his blog, and in fact, I use a service to tweet his posts to my twitter account so those who follow me on twitter can read his posts, and I use the same service to share his blog posts on Facebook, too. His blog is also listed on the right hand sidebar of Faith of the Fathers Blogs under the heading "My Favorite Catholic Blogs" (they are in alphabetical order so scroll down to find WDTPRS).

To vote for Father Z's blog you can click here to vote. You will have to sign up to cast your vote, but don't worry. They don't share your email and do not send you any kind of spam or unwanted emails. So go vote for Father Z now!

And if you don't read his blog, then you are missing out my friends!

If by some chance you'd also like to vote for me (you CAN vote for more than one blog, it would be nice to see THREE Catholic blogs take the top three spots) you can vote for me by clicking here. I'd be happy to get more than the 4 or 5 votes I got last year!

Regardless of who else you vote for, please do cast a vote for Father Z's blog first. He has a strong start at the moment, and I for one would like to see him finish strong because to be honest, the man truly deserves it for all of his hard work!!

Winner Announced for 2010 CINO Awards

The winner of the 2010 CINO (Catholic In Name Only) Awards have been announced at Serviam. The nominees for 2010 were:

Nancy Pelosi
Doug Kmeic
Joe Biden
National Catholic Reporter
America Magazine 

Go on over to Serviam to see how your candidate fared!

Three Posts From Other Blogs To Read

 

 

In my last post, I mentioned my blog list on the right hand sidebar of Faith of the Fathers blogs, and I want to call your attention to three of those and a post from each that you should read.

The first is from Creative Minority Report, and the title of the article is "Abortion Clinic Director Faked Bomb Scare". The title pretty much gives you the gist of the story, but it is informative reading.

The second post comes from Voices For Life, and the article there is must reading esoecially for those with elderly parents in the United States. The article is entitled "Modern Murder: Euthanasia is Here!" Please read it for yourself and for your loved ones.

Last but not least is from the blog of National Catholic Register called  "Frontline Faith Catholic Content for Sacrament-Starved Troops". It relates the efforts of  Cheri Lomonte to get the ball rolling to send Catholic content MP3 players to our Catholic American troops overseas. To give you an idea of the importance of this work, keep in mind that there are over 300,000 Catholics serving in the United States armed forces, and just 280 Catholic chaplains.

I hope you find these posts to be worthwhile reading as I did.