Our readers are encouraged to visit the the new Facebook page of the Institute on Religious Life and, if you’re so inclined, click the “like” button.

Just last week, the Catholic News Agency published an article on the immense popularity of religion-themed pages on Facebook. These pages attract many people. In fact, a page about Jesus and the Bible received nearly 2.3 million interactions during the week of May 9-15, beating out pop icons like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga.

This trend is by no means limited to the English-speaking world. For example, coming in ninth place with 460,000 user interactions was the Spanish religion-themed page “Dios Es Bueno!”

And now as the Catholic Church prepares for a worldwide Synod on the new evangelization, we can expect even more of an emphasis on Facebook and other social media sites in the months and years to come.

So please visit our Facebook page and give us feedback, so we can continually improve our outreach in the area of promoting religious life and vocations.