I follow the Catholic Online articles and often comment on them. My purpose in doing this is not to trash-talk the Catholic faith, intentionally stir-up controversy (although I do not think that necessarily a bad thing) or boost my ego. The truth is, I find the debate between conservative Catholicism and the secular population very interesting. I enjoy tossing around different ideas simply for the sake of intellectual enrichment. My purpose is not to degrade any religious beliefs, or even argue against the validity of Church teaching. Indeed, I myself am a Catholic and do follow its teachings generally. However, I do not like the blind adherence to religious principles exhibited by so many on the site. Further, I think blind faith without test and tribulation leads to a very uninformed zombie.
The Catholic Online, I've gathered, does not appreciate this quality in me. In the past several weeks, I have tried to post numerous comments on their boards. For sure, most of them extend my disagreement with the rigid Catholic teaching exhibited on the site. As most people know, I am not what I would consider a "devout" Catholic, in the generally accepted meaning of that word. Thus, I have great disagreement with people on the board. Further, I just graduated from law school, I don't really like discussing problems and issues that end up in useless agreement. That's boring. It's so much more fun to turn heads.
Of the comments I've tried to post on the board (I believe there were 5 or 6), only one was posted, and it was an addendum to a larger comment I had posted earlier (that never made it up) so it didn't make much sense. The board has its "disclaimer" that states any harassing comments or false representations of the teachings of the magesterium will not be posted. Personally, I don't think my comments fall into this category. I can certainly get heated up and will often write from the heart, especially regarding issues that mean something personal to me. I will flat out say, none of my comments harass, and none of them misrepresent established Church teaching. Indeed, most of my comments do not even touch on Church teachings simply because I do not know enough about them where I would feel comfortable writing on them.
My comments are nothing more than opinion, occasionally littered with relevant facts. Yet the moderators of these boards seem to think they are inappropriate. I have e-mailed Catholic online twice and even tried to call them in an effort to figure out why my thoughts are being rejected. Nobody on their end wants to discuss it.
This is where I get infuriated. If the Catholic Online wants to be some kind of "praise Jesus" site with no discussion whatsoever and everybody agreeing with one another, I think that's fine. However, that is not what they make themselves out to be. In their disclaimer they say they allow robust discussion. Well that is apparently not true, at least not in my case. Apparently, they do not like any kind of adverse thought antithetical to Church teaching. My question to them is "why?" I am not conceited, I do not think I am going to write some fabulous argument countering the authors' words that is going to change the faith of others on the board. I suppose it could happen, but that's probably unlikely.
What bothers me about this is it is simply bad form in argument. A debater cannot pick and choose which of its opponent's arguments it's going to defend against, and then slyly ignore the other hard ones.
For example, I was reading an article about gay marriage and the writer stated within that homosexuals engage in dangerous sex practices. I do not disagree, there are many gay men (and women) out there that practice unsafe sex. For sure, in my comment I did not dispute his assertion. However, I felt it necessary to clarify that homosexual men are not the only group of people that engage in dangerous sex. Heterosexuals are equally, if not more, guilty.
Now, obviously I wasn't in an actual debate with the writer of the article. However, I do think it appropriate to make comments like that, pointing out false assumptions that people are making, as in a debate. Basically, what this website is doing is allowing its writers to assert these horribly suspect opinions and statements of fact, but blocking a dissenter's ability to write out corrections. This is very bad.
I found this interesting. While talking to one of the representatives of Catholic Online on the phone, he told me that their publication was larger than the New York Times. This very well could be true. However, one thing I wanted to say to him is that I could never imagine the New York Times, a renowned journalistic publication not allowing some form of correction, i.e. letters to the editor. The Catholic Online might be a large publication, but it is not a paradigm of journalistic integrity and objectivity, and certainly not in the same echelon as the NYT. I literally almost laughed out loud when the guy said that.
A larger question looms however. Why is this conservative publication so afraid of valid comments that oppose statements in its articles to the point that their haphazardly censoring what ever "feels" bad? Honestly, I do not actually know. I think there is a concern for other readers. They are obviously reaching out to the Catholic conservative audience and I suppose they may lose more and more readers if people are reading posted comments that offend their beliefs, thinking it is the website condoning what these people are writing. I think it could also be the whole, "Crap, this guy's writing some good stuff that puts us Catholics in our place, we shouldn't let this out." This is even worse because the editors are assuming that their readers are a bunch of idiots and cannot defend the Church's stances against criticism. Having been in contact with Catholics all my life, I realized very early on that it isn't hard to stump them when it comes to contradiction in teaching. It has happened to me when defending the Catholic faith against criticisms I do not like.
My personal opinion is that the Church is filled with bad debaters. Part of the problem is that followers of the Church see it as having this infallible authority, and the Church makes itself out to be just that. Justice Jackson once said of the United States Supreme Court: "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are fallible because we are final." This concept doesn't exist in the Catholic Church. There is no "we might be wrong." The Church basically closes itself off to public debate, at least from within the Catholic community. Indeed, if you question, you cease to be a Catholic. I've seen this happen many times. It scares me. One, because the Catholic Church is basically leading itself unprepared into a very important debate, and two, it makes the Church look like a bunch of idiots.
If the Church really wants to start being a practical and important part of the debate on Catholic issues, it has got to step out of the strict authoritarian role and it needs to venture out in to the land of secular law. It has to understand that its teaching and rules only apply to those who choose to follow them. The Church has no armies or police to enforce its rules, its only power over people on earth is stating "you will not inherit the kingdom of God." I am not saying that this is not an effective mechanism, indeed, a lot of people do keep strict adherence to Church teachings for that very reason. However, it doesn't really work against those who don't believe it. Thus, I think the Church needs to start making its way into the secular debate, and giving more substantive arguments than "the bible says so." Yeah, the bible does say it, but the bible is simply not relevant authority to a lot, and a growing number, of people.
This is what bothered me a few months back regarding the abortion debate I was having with people on those boards. People kept saying, abortion is murder, murder is bad, it should not be allowed. Well yes, that is one way to look at it, but then secularists (who do not follow biblical teachings as closely) say it falls outside the definition of murder, because murder is the intentional killing of a human person and that doesn't include an embryo or fetus. Then the religious argument goes all to hell because religious arguments do not work in a secular debate. At some point, you have to stop saying "God hates abortion" and start making some other claim.
I do want to mention that I think the religious argument is a valid and important argument to assert in debates concerning public morality. However, it cannot be the only source of argument, especially not in a system that makes use of far more secular views than Catholic/Christian views. It concerns me that devout Catholics wont go out and venture beyond their religious identity. And it certainly doesn't work to keep ignoring secular arguments, good arguments, simply because they're not religious. This is what Catholic Online is doing and it makes the Catholic Church look like a very weak opponent in the debate. I think they should rethink who and why they censor.
