Catholic Listeners launch new website

The telephone helpline for people who would like to know more about our faith - whether they are baptised Catholics who've drifted away or those curious to know more - has launched a new website.

Catholic Listeners, which was launched in April 2022, is staffed by a team of volunteer listeners who between them, have taken hundreds of calls since its launch. Many calls were initially from people struggling to remain connected to their parishes and faith during lockdown. Now the service has now taken on a wider remit.

With the launch of its new website, at Farm Street Jesuit Church, Catholic Listeners can now respond online to the most common questions about the Catholic faith, with links to pages which explore the Catechism of the Catholic Church, scripture and Church documents. The site is also developing an online personal response service to complement its telephone service.

The launch was overseen by Fr Dominic Robinson SJ. Ade Owusu-Ansah, who is the project manager for the website, told the audience at the launch event that the website has been designed to be easy to navigate, and that new topics would continue to be added in future, including advice on how to find a spiritual director.

The website was designed by Peter's House, a Catholic digital design service which created the most recent website for the British Jesuits, and is currently working on other projects for the Society of Jesus.

Director Nazar Alsamarai told the launch event that online searches about the existence of God jumped during the pandemic to their highest point since Google first became recording such data in 2004.

However, searchers had to scroll through 12 pages of results before they found an answer to that question from a Catholic organisation. The new Catholic Listeners website will utilise Search Engine Optimisation to ensure it stays near the top of Google's search results.

Catholic Listeners is an initiative of the Diocese of Westminster and is funded by the Cardinal's Appeal.

Visit Catholic Listeners here: www.catholiclisteners.com/

The telephone helpline can be reached at 0800 448 0704.