Last updated: October 3, 2026
Who We Are
GRCatholic.com is an independent website providing information and resources related to Catholic life in Grand Rapids and West Michigan.
Our website address is https://grcatholic.com.
GRCatholic.com is independently operated and is not an official website of the Diocese of Grand Rapids, any parish, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or the Holy See.
This Privacy Policy explains what information may be collected when you visit GRCatholic.com, submit information through the website, leave a comment, or otherwise interact with the site.
Information You Provide to Us
You may provide information to GRCatholic.com when you:
- leave a comment;
- submit an event;
- submit a ministry or organization;
- submit a schedule or correction;
- contact us; or
- otherwise provide information through the website.
Depending on the submission, this information may include your name, email address, parish or organization, website, and information contained in your message or submission.
We use this information to review and respond to submissions, maintain the site’s directories and schedules, communicate with submitters when necessary, correct information, and operate GRCatholic.com.
Information submitted specifically for publication, such as the name and details of a public event, ministry, parish, organization, or public contact person, may be published on GRCatholic.com.
We do not intentionally publish private contact information that was provided solely so that we could communicate with the person making a submission.
Comments
When visitors leave comments on GRCatholic.com, we collect the information shown in the comments form, along with the visitor’s IP address and browser user-agent string to assist with spam detection and website security.
An anonymized string created from your email address, sometimes called a hash, may be provided to the Gravatar service to determine whether you use that service. After your comment is approved, your Gravatar profile image may be publicly visible alongside your comment.
For information about how Gravatar and its parent company handle information, see the Automattic Privacy Policy.
Event, Ministry and Schedule Submissions
GRCatholic.com allows visitors, parishes, ministries, organizations, and others to submit information for inclusion in our directories, calendars, schedules, and other resources.
We may retain information submitted through these forms for as long as reasonably necessary to review the submission, maintain accurate records, communicate about updates, and operate the website.
Information intended for public listing may remain on the site or in our records after an event has passed. This can help us maintain the site, identify recurring events and ministries, and update information when a new schedule becomes available.
If you submit information about another person, please provide only information that you are authorized to share.
Media
If you upload images to GRCatholic.com, you should avoid uploading images containing embedded location information, such as EXIF GPS data.
Visitors may be able to download publicly displayed images and extract information embedded in those files.
Cookies
GRCatholic.com and services used to operate the website may use cookies and similar technologies.
If you leave a comment, you may be given the option to save your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are provided for convenience so that you do not have to enter the same information when leaving another comment. These cookies may remain for up to one year.
If you have an account and log in to GRCatholic.com, WordPress may create cookies necessary to determine whether your browser accepts cookies and to save login information and display preferences.
Login cookies generally remain for two days, while screen preference cookies may remain for approximately one year. Selecting “Remember Me” may keep you logged in for approximately two weeks. Logging out removes the login cookies.
If you edit or publish content, WordPress may save an additional cookie identifying the article you edited. This cookie contains no personal information and generally expires after one day.
Services used by GRCatholic.com may also use cookies or similar technologies for website functionality, statistics, security, or embedded content.
Website Statistics
GRCatholic.com uses Jetpack Stats, a service provided by Automattic, to help us understand how visitors use the website.
Jetpack Stats may collect information such as pages and posts viewed, referring websites, search terms, approximate location, device and browser information, and other information about visits to the site.
We use this information to understand which pages and resources are useful to visitors, monitor general website traffic, and improve GRCatholic.com. We do not use Jetpack Stats for the purpose of personally identifying individual visitors.
For more information, see the Automattic Privacy Policy.
Website Security and Spam Prevention
GRCatholic.com uses Wordfence to help protect the website against malicious traffic, unauthorized access, and other security threats.
As part of providing these security functions, Wordfence may process information such as IP addresses, browser and device information, requested URLs, login attempts, and other information associated with requests made to the website.
This information is used for website security, including identifying and blocking potentially malicious activity.
Wordfence is provided by Defiant, Inc. For more information, see the Wordfence Privacy Policy.
Visitor comments or form submissions may also be evaluated by automated systems for spam or abuse prevention.
Embedded Content From Other Websites
Pages and articles on GRCatholic.com may include embedded content from other websites, such as videos, images, maps, social-media content, or other media.
Embedded content generally behaves in the same way as if you visited the third-party website directly.
These websites may collect information about you, use cookies or similar technologies, and monitor your interaction with the embedded content. If you have an account with that service and are logged into it, the service may be able to associate your interaction with your account.
The collection and use of information by those services is governed by their own privacy policies.
External Links
GRCatholic.com contains links to websites operated by parishes, dioceses, schools, ministries, Catholic organizations, businesses, news organizations, and other third parties.
Following one of these links takes you to a website that GRCatholic.com does not operate. The privacy practices of that website are governed by its own policies.
Who We Share Information With
GRCatholic.com does not sell personal information.
Information may be processed by service providers necessary to operate, maintain, secure, and understand the use of GRCatholic.com. These may include our web hosting provider, Automattic/Jetpack for website statistics and related WordPress services, and Wordfence/Defiant for website security.
Pages on GRCatholic.com may also contain embedded content from third-party services. Those services may receive information when you interact with their content, as described above.
We may disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with applicable law or valid legal process, protect GRCatholic.com or its users, investigate abuse or security incidents, or protect our legal rights.
We do not sell or rent visitor or submitter information to advertisers or data brokers.
How Long We Retain Information
If you leave a comment, the comment and its associated metadata may be retained indefinitely. This allows us to recognize and approve follow-up comments and maintain conversations on the website.
Information submitted through event, ministry, schedule, correction, contact, or other forms may be retained for as long as reasonably necessary to respond to the submission, maintain accurate site information, document changes, or operate GRCatholic.com.
For registered users, if any, we store the personal information provided in their user profiles. Users can generally view, edit, or delete their personal information, although usernames may not be changeable. Website administrators can also view and edit this information as necessary to administer the website.
Certain information may be retained longer when reasonably necessary for security, administrative, legal, or recordkeeping purposes.
Your Choices and Rights
If you have an account on GRCatholic.com, have left comments, or have otherwise provided personal information, you may contact us to request information about personal data we maintain about you.
Where applicable, you may also request correction or deletion of personal information.
This does not require us to delete information that we need to retain for legitimate administrative, security, legal, or recordkeeping purposes, or information that is not personal information about you.
If information about you has been published as part of an event, ministry, organization, or other listing and you believe it should be corrected or removed, please contact us.
How We Protect Information
We use reasonable administrative and technical measures intended to protect GRCatholic.com and information submitted through the website.
These measures include website security tools designed to identify and block potentially malicious activity.
However, no website, server, network, or method of electronic transmission can be guaranteed to be completely secure. We therefore cannot guarantee absolute security.
Children’s Privacy
GRCatholic.com is a general-audience Catholic information website and is not designed to collect personal information directly from children.
Some listings may concern Catholic schools, religious education, youth ministries, family activities, or events intended for children or teenagers. The presence of information about these activities does not mean that GRCatholic.com is intended to collect personal information from children.
If you believe a child has provided personal information to GRCatholic.com that should be removed, please contact us.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as GRCatholic.com changes or as the services used to operate the website change.
The Last updated date at the top of this page indicates the most recent revision.
Contact Us
For privacy questions, requests, corrections, or concerns, please use the contact form provided on GRCatholic.com.