Baltimore, Md., Jun 13, 2019 / 15:40 pm
Over the course of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' spring general assembly, questions arose online: what was going on with the suddenly-chatty USCCB Twitter account? Did they give an intern, or perhaps a particularly hip young priest or enthusiastic new convert the password? Had the account been hacked?
As it turns out, none of those were true. The account is run by Connie Poulos, a 31-year-old content and marketing coordinator at the USCCB. She's not an intern – and has worked for the conference since 2017, originally as a digital media specialist – and she's not a convert, and she's definitely not a priest. She's married, and she and her husband are in the process of adopting a son from China.
Poulos sat down with CNA during this week's general assembly to discuss what prompted the USCCB's new online persona. Apparently, this strategy was part of a larger plan to attempt to present a more humanizing look at the bishops of the conference, and better to engage with the account's 156,000 Twitter followers.
"When I first started in 2017, we didn't engage on this level, but we did engage," she explained. "Then, McCarrick happened."