Open to Discussion?

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 05, 2010

“I look forward to the day when you have the courage to open up discussions on your website.” We get this sort of comment from time to time, almost always from those who do not accept the teachings of the Catholic Church. This particular quote was the closing of a long and irate message lambasting us for having an article critical of in vitro fertilization in our library.

Of course, if it were a matter of courage, I’d hide my email address. But I find that those who would love to rip into Catholic ideas and criticize others for their fidelity to Church teaching often play the courage card when they find that they aren’t admitted to the discussion.

I’m going to be perfectly frank about this. People who love the Church, take their Faith seriously, and follow the Pope have very few places where they can read and exchange Catholic ideas without being subject to attack. On almost any news and commentary site out there, they’ll have no problem finding anti-Catholic comments, arguments and slurs.

Sorry, not here. Visitors who wish to rant against the Church or her teachings are free to contact the editors by email. I’m tempted to charge the hostiles a consulting fee, but if a correspondent sounds as if he or she would like to understand an issue more fully, I’ll always answer if time permits. (I find my courage is not strained to the breaking point by reading and answering email.) But what most often infuriates those who want to attack the Catholic positions we uphold is not that they cannot comment, but that they cannot publish their comments on the web site they wish to attack.

At CatholicCulture.org we guard against unwelcome public comments in two ways. First, we restrict public comment to donors. It only costs five dollars a year to be classified as a “current donor” so that you’re eligible to make Sound Off! comments. This sometimes annoys good people who are flat broke and, curiously, it also sometimes annoys those who have inexplicably come to believe that their speech should not only be free but published on somebody else’s dime. But mostly it just upsets visitors who want to take the Church down a peg. And what we’ve found is simply this: Those who don’t have honorable motives won’t ante up their five bucks to get in the game. Over the last fifteen years, I can count the exceptions on one hand.

The fact that comments are restricted to donors reduces our editorial burden tremendously. This is because the second way we keep our guard up is to screen all comments. As a service to our readers, we make public only those remarks that are intelligible, courteous, within Catholic bounds, non-repetitive, and relevant. Most comments that don’t make it through fail only on one of the last two points.

We take these precautions because we want CatholicCulture.org to be a place Catholics can visit without having to cover their eyes, defend the Church against attack, or read ignorant drivel. We also want it to be a place non-Catholics can visit to investigate Catholicism quietly, seriously and in a supportive culture. For these reasons, visitors who want to bash the Church and her teachings, whether they claim to be Catholic or not, will never be published on our web site.

Now here's one final point, and you can take it to the bank: In every situation short of Heaven, in one way or another, somebody will get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. On CatholicCulture.org, it is not going to be those who are sincerely trying to learn and live the Catholic Faith.