Friday 10:00 – 11:30 AM

Location: Gateway 4

How does a Catholic communicator avoid cynicism, burn out and an exhausted spirit?

Target audience: All communicators who may struggle with keeping the faith amid the pressures and responsibilities of their jobs. Catholic media professional, or media professional who is Catholic?

Greg Erlandson has served in Catholic media as a journalist, author, editor, publisher and president.

For 15 years he was President and Publisher of the Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division after having served first as the editor of OSV Newsweekly and then as Editor in Chief for all editorial content.

He previously worked as a foreign correspondent in the Rome bureau of Catholic News Service, where he covered the Vatican from 1986 to 1989. He also served as news editor for the National Catholic Register when it was based in Los Angeles.

He is co-author of the 2010 book, Pope Benedict XVI and the Sexual Abuse Crisis: Working for Reform and Renewal and has written many articles, editorials and columns.

Erlandson is past president of the Catholic Press Association.  He has served as a consultor for the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. In 2014 he was one of six international experts appointed by the Council of Cardinals to the Vatican Media Committee to propose reforms for the Vatican’s diverse media operations.

Friday 10:00 – 11:30 AM

Location: Gateway 5

Added value is many things: more readers, lower costs, more revenue, a new digital resource for students and scholars, and digital archiving for the future. The Catholic News Archive is a hosted, Catholic, nonprofit, and collaborative solution that demonstrates how vision becomes reality.

Pat  Lawton directs digital initiatives and services of CRRA, consulting members and scholars to understand their needs, communicating and facilitating collaborative initiatives among members, and is also a Librarian at the University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries. Before that, she was an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Science teaching in the areas of digital libraries and organization of knowledge; prior to that she taught at schools at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign. She has been recognized for excellence in teaching.

She is a frequent researcher, speaker and writer, nationally and internationally, on collaborative and digital initiatives, and serves on the Executive Board of the Catholic Library Association.

Pat holds a B.A and M.L.S. from Indiana University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Friday 10:00 – 11:30 AM

Location: Grand Ballroom F

Reading Amoris Laetitia is a little bit like reading the letters of St. Paul. How do we make sense of all the different things it says? How do we avoid some of the obvious (and not so obvious) pitfalls that have caused misunderstanding and angst? And what direction can it give, not only to our faith but also to our professional lives as Catholic communicators?

Dr. Ed Hogan is a husband, a father, and a teacher.

He and his wife have been married 23 years and have six children, ages 19 to 7. Ed says: “it’s a glorious way to be overwhelmed.”

Ed loves to teach and has done so at the high school, college, and graduate school levels. He has taught men’s groups, parishes, clusters, dioceses, and formation programs. In teaching, he says, he always receives more than he gives.

Ed has a PhD in theology from Boston College. He has worked with the Institute for Priestly Formation and the Diocese of Saginaw. Currently he is Director of the Pontifical Paul VI Institute of Catechetical and Pastoral Studies and is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, both in St. Louis.

Friday 10:00 – 11:30 AM

Location: Gateway 3

Great photography can go a long way for telling stories, in journalism, fundraising and mission awareness. It takes commitment to telling the story of the human condition visually.

Target Audience: Photographers and communicators who want to improve their use of visuals to tell the stories of ministries for increased awareness and support.

Erik Lunsford documents the mission and relief work around the world as managing photojournalist of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. Before joining the LCMS, Erik worked as staff photographer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, and The Stuart News in Stuart, Fla. Pictures of the Year International, Joop Swart Masterclass of World Press Photo, the Southern Short Course in Photography, the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, the Florida Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists and others have recognized his work.

Friday 2:00 – 3:15 PM

Location: Grand Ballroom F

Continuing the theme of “Using Media Humanly,” we will discuss how to help ourselves, our families, our youth, friends and colleagues to witness to Christ and the dignity of the human person by the way we choose to use these “marvelous gifts” of digital, new and social media. If we’re Catholic and connected? That makes us “Digital Catholics.” If “everything is ours and we are Christ’s and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:23)–how do we make media work for us and not against us?

Sr. Helena Burns, fsp, is a member of the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation founded to communicate God’s Word through the media. She is finishing her M.A. in Media Literacy Education; has a B.A. in theology and philosophy from St. John’s University, NYC; studied screenwriting at UCLA and Act One, Hollywood; and holds a Certificate in Pastoral Youth Ministry.

Sr. Helena also studied at the Theology of the Body Institute, PA. She is a movie reviewer for Life Teen & The Catholic Channel–Sirius XM. She wrote and directed a documentary on the life of Blessed James Alberione  and is a co-producer on The 40 Film. She is presently writing Theology of the Body curriculum, and her daily book for young women is “He Speaks to You”. She is also a regional vocation directress for the Daughters.

Sr. Helena gives Media Literacy and Theology of the Body workshops to youth and adults all over the U.S. and Canada, and believes that media can be a primary tool for sharing God’s love and salvation. (She is a dual–not duel–citizen: AmeriCanadian.)

Friday 12:00 – 1:30 PM

Sr. Helena Burns, fsp, is a member of the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation founded to communicate God’s Word through the media. She is finishing her M.A. in Media Literacy Education; has a B.A. in theology and philosophy from St. John’s University, NYC; studied screenwriting at UCLA and Act One, Hollywood; and holds a Certificate in Pastoral Youth Ministry.

Sr. Helena also studied at the Theology of the Body Institute, PA. She is a movie reviewer for Life Teen & The Catholic Channel–Sirius XM. She wrote and directed a documentary on the life of Blessed James Alberione and is a co-producer on The 40 Film. She is presently writing Theology of the Body curriculum, and her daily book for young women is “He Speaks to You”. She is also a regional vocation directress for the Daughters.

Sr. Helena gives Media Literacy and Theology of the Body workshops to youth and adults all over the U.S. and Canada, and believes that media can be a primary tool for sharing God’s love and salvation. (She is a dual–not duel–citizen: AmeriCanadian.)

Friday 10:00 – 11:30 AM

Location: Gateway 1

Is it more than just format? Or it may not involve a format change as some newspapers have shifted their content to magazine style while still printing on newsprint. And vice versa, what does shifting to a magazine format and schedule, such as monthly, mean for messaging and reporting?

Panelists will also discuss planning strategically for such a shift in format or schedule.

Chris Gunty

A Chicago-area native, Chris Gunty is associate publisher/editor of The Catholic Review and CEO of its parent publishing company, The Cathedral Foundation/CR Media.

He has spent his whole professional career so far — 35 years — in Catholic journalism as a writer, photographer, editor, circulation manager and associate publisher, often performing many of these functions at the same time. He spent four years with The Chicago Catholic; 19 years as founding editor and associate publisher of The Catholic Sun in Phoenix, Ariz.; and six years at The Florida Catholic, a group of six zoned newspapers serving most of the dioceses of Florida. In July 2009, he joined The Cathedral Foundation in Baltimore.

Chris served as president of the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada from 1996 to 1998.