What on earth is Paulo123.com?

It's simply the personal
web site of Paul Andrew,
a deacon of the
RC Diocese of Plymouth.

The answers to these questions - and to a lot more besides - will be found in the following pages. So, why not stop what you were doing just for a moment and  have a quick look around the site?

By the way, if you find any of the links don't work it could be because I have updated the page, and lost it. It would be really helpful to know of anything on the site that doesn't work properly - please email me.  Thank you.

So, why Paulo?

It's never easy to decide what to call a personal web site - especially when your names have already been used by someone else. Yes, <paul-andrew.info> was available; but I know from experience the difficulties that arise in trying to explain or spell out a hyphen or an underscore in an email address or website. I could have had <michaelpaulandrew.com> but that seemed unecessarily clumsy.

So, as Fatima is spiritually my second home, and Paulo is equally if not more memorable than Paul, I opted for Paulo.

And why the 123.com?

The first reason is simple necessity: paulo.com was not available (nor paulo.org, nor paulo.net, etc.), so something had to be added and 123 seemed a pretty memorable suffix. It is also quite appropriate because in at least THREE different spheres my life has been split into THREE parts. Viz.

• THREE major stages of my life: growing up in Bodmin, training and working as a teacher, training and working as a priest
• THREE major "interests" have dominated my life: faith in God, music and education.
• and there have been THREE parts to my faith journey: Methodist, Anglican & Catholic.

So Paulo123.com it is.

But why bother
to have a website
at all?

I was encouraged to continue this site because Pope Benedict XVI chose to dedicate World Communications Day 2010* to the theme "The priest and pastoral ministry in a digital world: new media at the service of the Word."

The Holy Father urges priests to consider the new media as a powerful resource for their ministry in the service of the Word. He believes that if the new media are adequately known and appreciated, they can facilitate ways of collaboration and growth of communion that were unthinkable in the past.

He also said that thanks to the new media, those who preach and make known the Word of life can reach individuals and whole communities on every continent; and the new media can thus become for priests a valid and effective instrument of true and profound evangelization and communion.

It is the Pope's hope that the communi-cations media will be a new way to bring Christ to the streets. It is in the spirit of that hope that I work on this site.

I was further encouraged by the words of Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli in an address he gave to a conference on "Digital Witnesses: Faces and Languages in the Cross-Media Age" in the Vatican on 23rd April last. "Today", he said, "we are not called to be simply citizens, perhaps lost or just full of wonder in the digital continent. Our task is not, either, to occupy just any space and to make ourselves present because there is nothing else to do; we are called, rather, to leave a visible imprint, recognizable imprints that make one think because of the marks we have in fact left by our presence. If the Internet by definition is virtual, to us corresponds the task of making it concrete, of giving it depth, of offering it, in a certain sense, a soul and hence, life. As the first apostles went out into the then known roads, in this way the Internet will have to serve us to spread the Good News."

*The World Day of Communications is the only worldwide celebration established by the Second Vatican Council. It is observed in most countries the Sunday before Pentecost.

What's actually on this site?

On THIS PAGE directly above this:

• in the LEFT HAND COLUMN you'll find the reason for the site's name;
• in the RIGHT HAND COLUMN is the philosophy of it's whole raison d'etre

Then, as THE SIDEBAR DOWN THE LEFT shows,

• there are a few pages with SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT ME, where I've come from, what I'm doing now, and what the future holds in store (as far as I know it!).
• There are some PAGES OF GENERAL INTEREST: some of which were prepared for specific events like the amazing state visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the UK, the launch of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus - these are now at "the end" of the site, as the event is over. There are also various religious resources including information about the new translation of the missal, and "fun" items like the God Satisfaction Survey.
• There is also a great deal on the site about THE SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY at FÁTIMA and about EFFA (the Ecumenical Friends of Fátima Association) - including details on the "Notices" page of pilgrimages to Fátima.
  Those responsible for EFFA have been trying to build an "official" site for the Association for some time, and I'm pleased to say one is now under construction. You can visit it at www.efatima.com but, as work on it continues, I still include EFFA material here, along with my own Fátima resources and archives.
• Finally, there are a number of "GALLERIES" with collections of photos and one with music and sound items. Do spend a moment having a look around these if you can.

After all, it would be SO boring
if it was all about me!