Holy Trinity Parish Website Policies
(Version 2.0, as of March 28, 2010)
A. Website Mission Statement
“The Church must not be afraid to use technology to spread the Good News.” ~ Pope Benedict XVI to the 2006 World Congress for Catholic TV in Madrid
“If a parish does not evangelize, it is nothing more than a building…The parish community must move away from a maintenance model to a missionary model… if the only thing we do is repair the buildings, this will kill us spiritually.” ~ Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments (2008).
“Proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources - - images, videos, animated features, blogs, and websites.” ~ Pope Benedict XVI in the 2010 World Communications Day Message, January 25, 2010.
We, the faith community of Holy Trinity Parish in Bremerton, Washington, rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, recognizing our need to become an evangelizing parish, commit ourselves to the fullest use of Internet-based digital media as an essential component in our call to Catholic evangelization though planned and coordinated use of the Internet in support of that evangelizing mission.
Responding adequately to this call necessarily involves using evolving communications technologies. The world of digital communication, with its almost limitless expressive capacity, makes us appreciate all the more Saint Paul’s exclamation: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16).The increased availability of these new technologies demands greater responsibility from all of us called to proclaim the Word, but it also requires us to become more focused, efficient and compelling in our digital communications efforts. We stand at the threshold of a new era: as new technologies create deeper forms of relationship across greater distances, we are called to respond pastorally by leveraging digital information media ever more effectively at the service of the Word.
The mission of our Holy Trinity Parish website is to:
EVANGELIZE the Gospel’s Good News,
CELEBRATE the elements of our Catholic faith with the rest of the world,
CATECHIZEthe members of our parish community and the fallen away so they can grow in or return to their faith, and
INFORM current and prospective parishioners about parish events, organizations, and services.
We are called to do all we can to spread the Gospel and help form our parish community. To accomplish this we commit ourselves and our parish website to always seek to use the latest in Internet technology in the service of social communications with the goals of formation, participation and dialogue.
B. Applicability and Compliance With Governing Directives
This policy applies to two parish Internet sites:
(1) An online parish photo album hosted at the SmugMug site:
(2) Our parish website:
As a Roman Catholic parish in the Archdiocese of Seattle, we are firmly committed to compliance with all Archdiocese of Seattle policies regarding parish websites. Specifically, we comply with Electronic Communications policies of the Archdiocese as follows:
-EC 15 requires us to have a website mission statement.
-EC 20a requires an external links disclaimer.
- EC 22 requires us to "address pertinent copyright, personal family privacy, liability, and security considerations in local guidelines."
- EC24 requires us to "address the use of personal...photos and directory information through local policies."
The website “Bremerton Catholic” ( a temporary joint outreach effort of Holy Trinity and Our Lady Star of the Sea parishes, includes links to the Holy Trinity Parish website. The “Bremerton Catholic” website is not a Holy Trinity website for which our Communications Committee has any responsibility. These policies do not apply to that independently designed and administered website.
C. Organization, Roles and Responsibilities
1. Pastor. Through both the Pastoral Council and the Communications Committee, the Pastor exercises broad overall responsibility for approval of these website policies, selection of the website administrator(s), delegation of various general types of system access rights permitted for various staff positions, assignment of specific website responsibilities to parish staff members, and resolution of any conflicts/complaints regarding website content and web administration responsibilities. He is a member of both the Pastoral Council and the Communications Committee and attends meetings of both consultative bodies.
2. Pastoral Council. The Council provides the leadership and oversight to the Communications Committee. Monthly reports of the Communications Committee will be discussed at each Pastoral Council Meeting. The Pastoral Council provides direction to the Communications Committee and approves revisions to this this document and other policies. Through the important overlapping membership in the Pastoral Council and the Communications Committee, we ensure that the current broad priorities and plans of the parish are always reflected in the website.
3. Communications Committee. Primary responsibility for developing and implementing website policy is vested in a Communications Committee with broad oversight by the Pastoral Council. The full Committee consists of staff members, website administrator (s), parish volunteers, and webpage authors/editors as defined by the Pastor and committee leaders.
The Committee may, from time to time, establish/dissolve standing and ad hoc subcommittees. One such standing subcommittee shall be the Website Subcommittee, consisting of the website administrator(s), all assigned web page authors/editors, and designated parish volunteers.
In addition to their web policy responsibilities, the Committee is responsible for the overall top-level administration of the website, including menu organization, page authoring standards, and the training of key website personnel. Creating new web pages (and the menus to support those new pages), modifying the front page photo slideshow, and creating/deleting new Quick Links (see Section G-5 of this document) at the website front page are actions reserved to the leaders of the Communications Committee in consultation with the Pastor. (The Communications Committee also has broad involvement in parish communications in addition to the website. Those other areas are beyond the scope of this website policy document.)
The Communications Committee does not directly task or supervise staff members in the performance of the particular website duties that may be/become a part of their job descriptions. In addition, the Communications Committee does not have authority to financially obligate the parish through contracted website work but may be asked to provide technical direction and liaison to website contractors.
4. Website Administrator(s). The website administrator(s) receive their overall policy direction from these policies as proposed adopted by the Communications Committee and ratified by the Pastoral Council. The website administrator(s) will refer policy questions to the Communications Committee leadership. The website administrator(s), designated by the Pastor, may be staff members and/or volunteers. The website administrators are members of the Website Subcommittee of the Communications.
5. Staff. TheHoly Trinity office staff, acting under the overall direction of the Pastor and under the immediate direction of their designated supervisor(s), is responsible for the following website duties:
a. Maintain the currentcalendar found on the website’s front page. (See Section G-2 of this document for calendar standards.)
b. Maintain the current Events This Weekand Funerals Scheduledlisting found on the website’s front page. (See Section G-4 of this document for “Events This Week” standards.)
c. Maintain the current What’s New news information found on the website’s front page. (See Section G-3 of this document for “What’s New” standards.)
d. Update the Parish Bulletin web page weekly by uploading the current bulletin document file.
e. Act as a website resources training/assistance for other staff members for basic, routine and recurring tasks not requiring training assistance from the Communications Committee.
6. Authors/Editors. Article authors/editors can be volunteers or staff members. They are assigned to a page (called an article in the Joomla system and in this document) by the Communications Committee. One person can be assigned as author for more than one article. However, a given article can have only one author in the Joomla system. An author can rely on contributors for parts of an article. All authors/editors will be guided by the article standards in section H of this document.
D. Security
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E. Privacy
We respect website visitor privacy and are committed to protecting it. Any personal, identifiable, information is collected from individuals voluntarily and knowingly. Visitors can visit all pages on our website without identifying themselves or providing any personal information. Our webhost logs all accesses and events at its web server and uses this information to generate periodic web site statistics reports. We will only share any personally identifiable information with third parties when the person submitting the information authorizes us to share it or if we are required to by law. As a matter of policy, Holy Trinity Parish does not track or identify individual website visitors as they browse the website. For the purpose of improving our website, the Communications Committee collects only aggregate information on which pages of the website are visited. No personal information is collected by Holy Trinity Parish as part of this process. There is currently no capability for visitors to post information to the website or to edit any webpages.
Designated Authors/Editors must first register with the website Administrator, providing their name and e-mail address as part of that registration process. This is the only personal information maintained as part of the administration of the Holy Trinity website.
Holy Trinity Parish has implemented procedures to safeguard personalinformation of its volunteers and staff members. We restrict access to personal information to those Holy Trinity Parish employees and agents who have a demonstrated need to know that information in order to administer the website. We maintain physical, electronic (password-protected) and procedural safeguardsto protect personal information.
Both the SmugMug photo album website and the Holy Trinity Parish website include photographic images of individuals taken at public events. We do not publish photographs of individuals taken at non-public events or at any event where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. The photograph must be taken in a public Holy Trinity setting and should not depict any recognizable person in a false light or leave a false impression that reasonable people would find offensive. Any person may request removal of a photograph from the SmugMug and/or Holy Trinity websites by contacting any member of the CommunicationsCommittee. The Communications Committee will ensure that a general photo disclaimer notice appears periodically in the Bulletin and is prominently featured on the website. The photo disclaimer shall be substantially as follows:
‘PHOTO DISCLAIMER
Those attending events at Holy Trinity Parishunderstand that photographs may be taken during the eventand their image/photographiclikenessmayappear in those resulting photographs.Some of those images may appear on a photo album website and some images may appear on the Holy Trinity Parish website When you attend parish events, you give permissionfor photoscontaining your image/likenessto appear on those websites for general informationpurposes. Because of the large number of people attending Holy Trinity Parish events, we are unable to obtain any further permission and cannot provide advance notification before using such photos.If you see a likeness of yourself at one of the listed websites and you wish to have that image removed, please send an e-mail to the Communications Committee:.’
F. Website Administration
1. Backup. The entire website (database and files) should be backed up weekly by an Administrator. The backup files should not be stored on the same server that hosts the website. All article authors/editors should be encouraged to periodically save their work while editing. Creating articles first in Word and then pasting the text into the Joomla editor window will provide each article Author a backup of the text of their page.
2. Checklist for Creation of New Page (with Menu) by the Communications Committee. The leadership of the Communications Committee will handle requests for the creation of new pages (with supporting menus) through the use of the following organizational and procedural checklist:
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G. Editorial Standards for theFront Page of the Holy Trinity Website
1. Frontpage Slide Show.The 6 to 10 pictures constituting the seasonally adjusted front page slideshow should collectively say "This is the variety of people (different ages, different ethnic backgrounds, different interests, etc.) and activities - - particularly those of the current liturgical season -- that is Holy Trinity Parish." The objective of the slideshow on the front page is to make a positive first impression on the new visitor by showing the breadth of activity (particularly sacramental and fellowship events) in the parish. The pictures should be predominantly of people in action, with a few of the pictures showing the interior and exterior (landscape) settings. They should all portray the parish in a positive light - - a welcoming place of happy people eager to share the Good News. In the interest of variety, there should not be more than one slideshow image from the same event nor should thesame parishioners appear in multiple images. (If desired, multiple images from the same event can be loaded to the SmugMug photo album site, and a single slideshow image can be made clickable from the front page to that SmugMug folder.) The slide show on the front page of the website is not intended to be the parish photo album. The emphasis should be on a few carefully selected future events rather than a photographic history of past parish events. It is less important that the pictures are very recent and more important that the pictures be positive images selected to show the broadest range of parish people and activities - - all appropriate to the current season (i.e., Advent, Christmas, Lent).The front page slideshow is also not envisioned as the "What's New" in photographic form, but a few of the images therecould show different recent events or promote different upcoming events - - in either case clickable to additional information/pictures. Showing a recent parish event is not the primary purpose of the slideshow, but there is no reason one image from a recent event could not be included and made clickable to additional pictures. Pictures that generate any complaint from those pictured or that are even likely to cause embarrassment to any one should be immediately removed. The Communications Committee leadership and website administrators will make occasional and seasonal changes to the front page slideshow. Their goal is to strike a balance between the broad range of ongoing liturgical/faith formation/outreach activities (a slide package less likely to change frequently) and a few selected current/seasonal slides on upcoming events of the current liturgical season requiring special promotion in the slide show.
2. Calendar. The purpose of this calendar block on the right side of the front page is to include longer range events of parish-wide interest or more specialized interest beyond the current week. It is important that the calendar be kept current. Entries should be as complete as possible based on all information known at the time. If the event requires more information, links/documents, special promotion, recurs as part of a project or program, or occurs repeated across multiple days or weeks, the best place for it might be the “What’s New” news section. Meetings of councils and commissions and upcoming liturgical events are appropriate in the calendar. Information should generally not be duplicated on multiple parts of the front page. Where “Events This Week” are events in the current week of parish-wide interest, events in the calendar are typically of longer range (usually at least the next month and can be scheduled events of likely interest to only a subset of the parish. Inherent in the selection of calendar events is exercise of sound editorial discretion including balance, fairness, and good journalism. Controversial, divisive, or political events should be avoided.
3. “What’s New.”The front page will accommodate up to four news items at any one time. The “What’s New” block should be kept current. Items with a clear expiration date (typically tied to events) should be removed promptly after the event has occurred. News items without a stated expiration date should generally not remain in this block for more than ten days. The priorities for categories of new items are (in priority order): (1) news of the parish, (2) news of the Archdiocese of Seattle, and (3) news of the universal Church/Vatican. In keeping with the mission of the parish website, at least one of the fourcurrently-listed news items should be parish news. Parish news can be drawn from the parish bulletin or other parish sources, including late-breaking news occurring after publication of the bulletin. Archdiocese of Seattle news can come from the Catholic Northwest Progress website, the Archdiocese website, the Archdiocese’s Catholic Northwest Media Digest e-mail, or articles in the popular press (e.g., Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Kitsap Sun). News items on the broader universal church could come from the secular press, religious press (e.g., Catholic News Service), or church hierarchy (WSCC, USCCB, Vatican) press releases/websites. News items shall be recent/current and selected on the basis ofbroad appeal to the greatest number of parishioners and the broadest appeal (greatest variety) of Church-related subjects. News items on the same subject, at any one time or from time to time, should be avoided wherever possible. Inherent in the “What’s New” editorial discretion is a sense of balance, fairness, and good journalism. Controversial, divisive, or political events should be avoided.