AmericanPapist Comments
Actually, according to Facebook's TOS, you're not supposed to have any titles at all in your Facebook name. After all, it is "Name" and not "Title, Name, and/or Degrees".
Also, this prevents people, to a certain extent, from impersonating priests on Facebook. Might be an odd idea, but it is stopping a sort of spiritual prey from being preyed on.
My brother's title is still on his profile. If you're not supposed to have a title, then I'm okay with this, as long as it's applied across the board.
Interesting side note here - a friend of mine told me on Saturday that her son was just removed from Facebook for being a homeschooler. Even though he is 16 and technically in high school through the Seton program, that wasn't good enough for them. They don't count it as school. They told him to come back when he is 18. She went on to say that supposedly about 200 or so homeschoolers have been booted.
Anyone else have any info?
I'm not fully into the whole "online community" fad. Is facebook pretty much another myspace and the like?
It would seem prudent for priests to avoid such things entirely.
Facebook is very different from myspace. I have never had a myspace account and would never. Facebook is on the whole, much cleaner and better monitored.
That isn't to say, however, that sometimes I think their target ads to a young-20s male like myself aren't inappropriate, but at least there are work-arounds to block those.
"I'm not fully into the whole "online community" fad. Is facebook pretty much another myspace and the like?"
Yeah, they're essentially one in the same, just geared for different audiences. Myspace is more for your mid-20s and older set, while facebook is more for college kids and high schoolers. I have both accounts, and I find both to be pretty worthless other than finding out more information about a girl I might be interested in. There are people who somehow manage to spend hours at a time on each, and I question what their actual social skills are like.
"It would seem prudent for priests to avoid such things entirely."
I couldn't disagree with you more on that. Such an online network allows priests to connect with others, especially kids. It's important for the Church to embrace every tool it can to keep kids interested in the Church, especially given the recent data that so many eventually fall away from the faith. Also, I truly believe that the explanation for my home diocese having the second or third most seminarians per capita in this country lies in part to so many priests using facebook to keep in touch with the youth. It shows that priests aren't dour individuals who are holed up in the rectory rejecting modern life, but rather are embracing it and still showing that the Church's message has a place in the midst of it.
What if you were to write out the word "Father" in your "full name" field, like "Father John Doe"?
BMP
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