NATCHEZ — From the pulpit to the computer St. Mary Basilica is taking its message to the Internet.

While the church has had a Web site for the past five years, a recently formed church committee is zeroing in on ways to more effectively use the Internet to help the church communicate with its members.

St. Mary Pastor the Rev. David O’Connor said utilizing the Internet as a means of communications with parishioners first cropped up during the most recent presidential election.

O’Connor said as he followed the election coverage on television, he found the use of large graphics that showed the political leanings of various states very appealing.

“I started to think that this was something we could try to do with our parishioners,” O’Connor said. “It made me wonder what we could do to start moving beyond the traditional chalk and slate way of communicating.”

And while the committee has only been meeting since February, parishioners have already been moving to online communications with the church on their own.

O’Connor said he has noticed a decrease in the number of paper church bulletins picked up in the back of church and an increase in the number of people that read the bulletin on St. Mary Web site.

“There’s an inevitable shift,” O’Connor said. “It’s not hard to see.”

And facilitating some of that shift is the church’s youth group coordinator Amanda Hudson.

Hudson manages the church’s Facebook, a social networking page, site, and has seen the number of members grow to approximately 130 in the two months the page has been active.

Hudson said the Facebook page is the only way she communicates with the church’s youth group.

“They can get on there and see what events are planned and bring their friends,” she said.

And while the St. Mary Facebook page is going strong, the church is also working to overhaul its current Web site, to make it user-friendly, and develop a group at the Yahoo Web site.

Hudson and O’Connor both said they both believe the Internet will play an increasingly larger role in the church’s communications in the not-so-distant future.

“We want to be ready,” O’Connor said.