We’re not yet sure what all you have told us, but we’re very sure what we need to tell the more than 1,500 thoughtful Catholics who took the time to respond to the Diocese of Peoria’s communications survey published in the March 8 issue of The Catholic Post, made available online, and sent to a sampling of non-subscribers and other targeted groups.

Thank you.

Your opinions will be like gold to our staff, our board of directors, and other diocesan leaders who are conducting a yearlong study of communications in this digital age.

Led by Bishop Jenky, we are doing in this diocese what bishops from 82 countries did last week at the Vatican: acknowledging the enormous revolutions in communications technology and planning to make the best use of every tool available to spread the Gospel.

As someone with a beloved horse in this race, my opinion is admittedly biased. I believe a diocesan newspaper remains a valuable and economically viable way to communicate with — and unify, which should never be overlooked — the 65,000 Catholic households of this diocese. We at The Catholic Post are grateful for the commitment to this newspaper expressed by Bishop Jenky in his letter introducing the communications study.

But you, the people in the pew — and on Facebook, cell phones, blogs, and e-mail address books — are the ones driving this discussion and whose opinions matter most. We needed to know how you want your Catholic news and information, what you wish to hear from your church, and when. As we approach our 75th anniversary as a diocesan newspaper on April 2, it was the perfect time also to ask what you like about The Catholic Post, and what you wish we’d change.

We are grateful that 1,500 of you took the time to tell us. A team of Bradley University students who didn’t know what they were signing up for are now busily compiling the information to determine trends, but when they are finished I assure you we’ll take a look at every survey. When mining for gold, you have to look close.

Thanks for every nugget of wisdom you took the time to share. — Thomas J. Dermody, editor-in-chief, The Catholic Post