To proclaim the Gospel through the new media means not only to insert expressly religious content into different media platforms, but also to witness consistently, in one’s own digital profile and in the way one communicates choices, preferences and judgements that are fully consistent with the Gospel, even when it is not spoken of specifically.
We, at this blog, have been on "Facebook" for a very short time. It has not been a very pleasant experience. It has shown us the ugly, and the not so hidden side of so-called "Catholic" life - and it is very disturbing indeed. It will be sufficient to say that if Facebook is anything to go by, many of our young Catholic people are - at minimum - leading double lives - are being corrupted, are corrupting each other, are blind or in denial to the reality of sin; have lost the sense of sin. What can be said of their parents? Their education? Did they really go to Catholic schools? What did these schools give them? And peer pressure - rot seems very contagious.
"Furthermore, it is also true in the digital world that a message cannot be proclaimed without a consistent witness on the part of the one who proclaims it".
The Daily Telegraph carries a report that David Cameron is complaining about the recent availability of graphic violence on Facebook. No doubt, he is correct; but to a degree. Such filth should not see the light of day. But I ask: what about moral and spiritual violence? It is the moral violence that leads to evil actions. The corrupted human mind leads to filth, obscenity, occult, vulgarity, violence and so on. It is worthless to complain about violence and yet to be blind to its causes. His protest seems more about optics, than fighting evil.
"In these new circumstances and with these new forms of expression, Christian are once again called to offer a response to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is within them" (cf. 1 Pet 3:15).
We refuse to be material accessories to this vile social media called Facebook. As a social media platform, its immediacy, its simplicity (in that it is not a thinking man's mode of communication); its design for the "wanna be celebrity" marks it as a very dangerous minefield. Good Catholic friends, please consider closing your Facebook accounts. Not only are you in grave danger of corrupting yourself; by default, being a member, you are a small cog in a gigantic wheel that is enabling a small band of evil men to become and continue to be "accidental billionaires". These men are not friends of the Catholic Church; the grinding wheel they turn is crushing far too many souls. They are enabling evil, and providing the tools to facilitate young people, even veritable children, to start life out trotting merrily down the wide path that leads to eternal damnation.
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