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Announcing a new vision for the Diocese of Albany’s Office of Communications, Albany Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger has appointed Catholic New York columnist Mary DeTurris Poust, currently a consultant to the diocese for digital and social media, as director of communications, effective Sept. 3.
She succeeds Kenneth J. Goldfarb, who has served in that position since 2002. The appointment also follows the retirement of Father Kenneth J. Doyle from his position as chancellor for public information.
Ms. DeTurris Poust, who served as managing editor of Catholic New York from 1991 to 1994, will continue to write her monthly Life Lines column, which has appeared in Catholic New York for the past 14 years.
The restructured Office of Communications in the Albany Diocese will include public information and media relations as well as social and digital media and oversight of The Evangelist, the diocese’s weekly newspaper.
“We want to use our communications proactively to announce and spread the Gospel and to equip not only the Catholic population but the general public with accurate, timely and helpful information about the Church and the activities of the diocese and our parishes,” Bishop Scharfenberger said in a statement.
“We need to use every means available to do that, and while traditional media, such as The Evangelist, remains critical to our communication and evangelization efforts, we must take advantage of the many new media platforms that allow us to broaden our reach and engage more Catholics in the New Evangelization.”
The Albany Diocese launched Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for the diocese and the bishop in April. The number of followers has been rising since then as the diocese begins to engage the rapidly increasing local and global Catholic community that exists online.
“As a long-time journalist, I value the power of the printed word, but there is no denying the equal power of new media to reach untapped populations that are hungry for a relationship with God,” Ms. DeTurris Poust explained.
By tapping the potential of both traditional and new media, Ms. DeTurris Poust said the Communication Office would “be able to better respond to the needs of our people and the needs of our times.”
Ms. DeTurris Poust has worked in Catholic media for more than 30 years and has written seven books on Catholic spirituality and teaching, and published hundreds of articles in both Catholic and secular newspapers and magazines. She is a regular contributor to Catholic radio and cable, and a social media expert who has spoken about the importance of using new media as a tool for evangelization to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2012 and World Communications Day in Brooklyn in 2014.
