I was sitting with my husband at St. John Vianney Church on Balboa Island last Sunday. As we waited for the 8 a.m. Mass to begin, I noticed a woman across the aisle reading OC Catholic. Two rows behind her another woman was doing the same. And in front of me, a man sat down with his copy of the paper.
Between the stacks dropped off at every parish in the diocese and at all the Catholic schools, as well as the papers delivered to homes each Sunday (with the OC Register), the weekly newspaper is among the largest weekly diocesan newspapers in the country.
Since the paper was launched nearly 5 years ago, we’ve made several changes to our editorial mix. The one feature that has garnered the most attention from readers is the inside back cover – the “Moments in our Journey” photo page. We love sharing photos you’ve taken that capture those special moments in your parish. Keep sending them in. (Remember to send them in high resolution to [email protected].)
In addition to photos, our readers have been sending in their written contributions, hoping to be published in the pages of OC Catholic’s print edition. Because we can’t fit all the submissions into the newspaper, we’ve decided to create a page on occatholic.com, the newspaper’s website, to publish approved submissions from readers.
The new online spot for reader contributions will allow us to share your writing with our digital audience that extends beyond the boundaries of the Diocese of Orange.
Here’s how to submit your work.
From occatholic.com, hover over the “Opinion” tab in the navigation bar at the top of the page. A dropdown option for “Reader Contributions” appears. Click on that to review our submission guidelines and then to submit your story. Unfortunately, we’re not able to accept submissions via regular mail. They must be submitted online.
We’re interested in stories that share your personal journey of faith. We’re looking for stories that will inspire others. We’re not interested in political rants or negative commentary. If your work meets our requirement for uplifting and inspirational, we’ll edit it for clarity and accuracy and publish it to our website.
Words are powerful. You may end up inspiring someone on his or her own faith journey with yours.