Author Archives: Bill Schmitt

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About Bill Schmitt

OnWord.net is the home for Bill Schmitt's blog and biographical information. This blog, initiated during Bill's nearly 14 years as a communications professional at Notre Dame, expresses Bill's opinions alone. Go to "About Bill Schmitt" and "I Link, Therefore I Am" to see samples of multimedia content I'm producing now and have produced during my journalism career and my marketing communications career. Like me at facebook.com/wgschmitt, follow me on Twitter @wschmitt, and meet "bill schmitt" on LinkedIn.

Speaker at RPI: Immigration Sets a Fast Pace for Theology

Posted on April 16, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

This news article for The Evangelist, the newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Albany, NY, was posted on April 15. By William Schmitt As society struggles to care for today’s immigrants with dignity and diligence, a priest-scholar told a local audience last week that … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Prayer, Spirit of communication | Leave a comment

Inform Those Consciences—The Exams are Getting Harder

Posted on March 25, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

In the 2025 documentary film “The Age of Disclosure,” we watch Luis Elizondo—a former senior intelligence official who leads the push for government transparency about UAP investigations—as he reads instructive words engraved on the Jefferson Memorial. America’s third president had … Continue reading →

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Frantic Times Need St. Francis, a Patron for Animals … and Humans

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

Your pilot for these past several years of verbal flights into “Phronesis” happens to be a member of the Secular Franciscan Order (SFO). I made my lifetime-profession into that canonically recognized “third order” of laypeople during the summer of 2001. … Continue reading →

Posted in Prayer, Spirit of communication | Leave a comment

World Communications Day Message Outlines AI’s Risks for Humans

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

An updated version of this article, with papal quotes from the Vatican website’s official translation, posted more recently, is available at the Substack publication here. The message of Pope Leo XIV for the Vatican’s 2026 World Day of Social Communications, … Continue reading →

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Words of the Year: Defining Our Loss of Definitude

Posted on January 7, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

Seldom is heard a discouraging word, but we might admit our malaise after five dictionary publishers revealed their selections of the 2025 “Word of the Year.” The common theme those selections conveyed was a worrisome view of cognitive pollution in … Continue reading →

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Human for the Holidays—A Gift that Keeps on Giving

Posted on December 26, 2025 by Bill Schmitt

The Little Drummer Boy learned that Christmastime gift-giving is more personal than material. By honoring Jesus as a newborn in the manger, the boy’s “pa-rum-pum-pum” song has encouraged generations to offer ourselves up—as presents truly “fit to give the King.” Ideally, our … Continue reading →

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Pray Me a Memory … Sad, Sweet, and I Knew it Complete

Posted on November 27, 2025 by Bill Schmitt

When Eileen and I attended a Thanksgiving prayer service at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Troy, NY, on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 23, I sampled food for thought that I’m still digesting. It was so abundant, I want … Continue reading →

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Overton at the Window: ‘Open Wide’ and ‘Look Out’!

Posted on November 18, 2025 by Bill Schmitt

The Overton Window, a tool for mapping public opinion, has helped to describe our evolving society since the 1990s. But in the past ten years or so, American discourse has gone off on more tangents, and people’s perspectives occupy a … Continue reading →

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Headlines Need Hearts: Sing a ‘News’ Song unto the Lord

Posted on October 30, 2025 by Bill Schmitt

It sounds illiberal to suggest mentioning prayer in secular news coverage.  After all, obituary writers frequently avoid discussing a deceased luminary’s faith practices, even his or her religion. When networks provided live coverage of the Sept. 21 memorial service for … Continue reading →

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Pope Leo Tells News Agencies to Cultivate Better Minds

Posted on October 12, 2025 by Bill Schmitt

Here are highlights from Pope Leo’s Oct. 9 address in Rome to a conference of Minds International, a non-profit organization of news agency executives collaborating on new-media businesses. Minds International says it was founded in 2007 to support digital development … Continue reading →

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