About SmartCatholics
When Catholics understand our Faith in the modern world, we experience greater personal joy, and confidence in sharing the good news.
We need smart Catholics…
Catholicism is smart and beautiful. But too few know about our smart, intellectual tradition, and the stunning impact Christ is having on the world – right now. Our hearts are united to Pope Francis’ call to bring the joy of the Gospel to every corner of the world, starting with ourselves.
Faithful
Smart Catholics believe in the mystical reality of the Catholic Church and the magisterium.
Heritage
Smart Catholics honor our Christian legacy and heritage and how it informs us today.
Modern
Smart Catholics revel in the latest research to stay relevant and be a source of renewal.
Meet the Team
Press a face to learn more!
Dominic de Souza
Founder & Event Coordinator
Maddy Longenecker
Event Coordinator
Dominic de Souza
Founder & Event Coordinator
A Cradle-Catholic passionate about how Faith, history, and science meet in today’s world. Born in New Zealand, studied in Fiji and France, raised in Australia, and now living in the USA.
Dominic has worked with private schools, marketing agencies, and international speaker bureaus for the last 15 years. SmartCatholics is his way to give back to the amazing world of Catholic speakers.
After launching his first online conference, ‘A Renewed Hope’ with 30+ speakers, zero-advertising, and almost 1000 attendees, he instantly turned his success into a process, and is putting it at the service of Catholic groups and speakers.
Maddy Longenecker
Event Coordinator
Maddy Longenecker was brought up in England before her family moved to the USA where her Dad was ordained as one of the few married Catholic priests. She went to Catholic high school in South Carolina before earning a bachelor’s degree from College of Charleston in Communications and English.
She’s worked with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in India, traveled around the Middle East and worked in Guatemala, Alaska and an orphanage in Ecuador. She works as Digital Events Producer facilitating SmartCatholics’ online conference and marketing network.
SmartCatholics helps Catholics get answers, friendship, and formation.
Host events to promote formation
Discover new voices and veteran speakers. Share questions, make friends, and discover a community of Catholics hungry for smart discourse on our beautiful heritage.
Together, we’re using new media to inspire, excite, and educate – with faith and reason!
Join a community of Smart Catholics
A key reason people disconnect from the Faith is loneliness, or the sense that they are weird.
We’re solving that problem by creating plenty of groups and events to make friends, fellowship, and teams focused on missions.
On-demand video for insight and formation
It’s an on-demand world. We need easier, faster, access to video training and podcasts.
So we handle the tech, so that Catholic speakers get back to their talent – helping people.
And Catholics worldwide get to stream learning and answers on-demand.
Things we love to talk about:
Science
History
Follow the studies refining how we understand Sacred Scripture, and our past.
Theology
Find out how all the new data and ancient wisdom integrates into a smart theology.
It’s exciting to be Catholic!
We have a heritage of great thinkers, thriving universities, and cathedral building. The Catholic contribution to the modern world defies belief. And hardly anyone knows it!
When challenged, many Catholics feel forced to:
Become ‘spiritual’, and not religious, because the ‘structure’ seems outdated and makes you look unintelligent.
Turn to ‘tried-and-true’ ways of thinking, and run the risk of not living in sync with the present Church.
Try to be open-minded to all religious expression, and lose our own identity and mission along the way.
Keep their head down, just try to be a good person, and hope it turns out okay.
Christ left us with a call to share the good news.
Secular culture and modern education has us convinced we’re klutzes in a Monty Python flick. Or that a true Catholic is Spock or the High Sparrow. It’s time to change things.
A smart Catholic isn’t afraid of the latest science and research. We’re excited to learn more about God’s evolving creation.
A smart Catholic gets that history is messy and human. We’re always open to the ongoing story of God’s active participation in our lives.
A smart Catholic joins the Church in celebrating the truth. We work to integrate faith and reason, so that they work together.
Smart Catholics are:
Welcoming to every human being, confident about Truth, and able to respond clearly and simply. Most of all, we strive to be amazing human beings.
Because that’s just smart.
Why Smart Catholics?
By Dominic de Souza, Founder
The Catholic Faith has always been a smart, beautiful religion.
For the first time in human history, archives are being posted online. Translation and searching tools mean we can study books in any language. At the speed of wifi.
About the Logo
The triskelion is an ancient symbol for the Trinity, its looping lines flowing into each other. The three distinct points speak to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
For SmartCatholics, the 3 points speak to how we solve problems. We fuse events with community and ondemand video. We love to talk about history, science, and faith. We are happy servants to the Church, the Scriptures, and the Magisterium.
In the spirit of evangelizing with new media, the logo centers on a play button. That’s how many Catholics today need to access the faith – ondemand, and as accessible as possible.
Learning to be a faithful, intelligent Catholic shouldn’t be a ‘rich man’s game’, but open and available to all who hunger for truth.
About the main image: Christ within Us
This graphic speaks to the SmartCatholics focus. The living presence of Christ exists in the Blessed Sacrament, but that Sacrament yearns to dwell within us. Evangelization and witness does not happen without our involvement. Christ is present in the world and to the world through our hearts and hands.
This is why in this image, man and woman are united. We depend on each other in everything. At first glance her hair looks like fire, a reminder that woman has a unique call to be a bearer of beauty. Beauty is the one thing that exists for itself, and no other reason, to reflect the beauty of God. That ‘winsomeness’, in the words of Bishop Barron, is the starting point for all evangelization – in life, deeds, objects, and words.
Our hearts are a monstrance for the Blessed Sacrament, and our lives must be ongoing acts of adoration. The rays that come out of us are light and salt to inspire our friends and community. The living presence of Christ within us brings fire, and the Precious Blood – the life of God Himself. And in wheeling rings come our patron saints and angels, spirits and hallowed hosts from Deep Heaven.
Finally, the young man, who represents us all, stands poised and open for action. You can lightly see that he stands in the glow of the Vatican, representing our faithfullness to the Pope and the mission of the Church. An interior photo of the dome above the Baldachino in St Peters shows how everything exists within the reality of Heaven.
Lastly, around the man’s feet, are glowing fronds of ferns and plants, lit by evening sunlight. Because everything declares the glory of the Lord.