“Faithbook” – I Propose A Dedicated Facebook-Alike For Us Catholics To Know More About & Love More God, Ourselves And The World!

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Facebook must be the most popular single platform for all kinds of people of all colors for all kinds of interests – and reading about the suggestion of last October’s Synod on synodality, it’s time for the Catholic Church to evangelize (and re-evangelize) via the digital world.

I’m talking about what I have come across, read and re-reread with favor & fervor Christopher White’s sharing, “Catholic Digital Leaders Urge Modern-Day Missionaries To Learn The Internet” (22 Feb 2024, National Catholic Reporter, ncronline.org). Why not – all Catholics on the Internet!
(image from pinterest.com)

And why should that be? I give these reasons:

(1)   Mr White quotes Mr José Manuel De Urquidi as saying, “Like those earlier missionaries of centuries past, the digital space is ‘a place where we need to be. We need to learn the language and to engage.’"

(2)   With FaithBook, you do not have to learn the people’s language and appreciate the local customs and culture – but you can begin to evangelize immediately. In English.

(3)   “Sending missionaries into new frontiers entails risks, including that of martyrdom.” No more martyrdom for Catholic converts – and converters!

(4)   You can/cannot make converts overnight. Mr White says, “When Francis Xavier reached India or Mother Cabrini arrived in the United States, neither believed they would make converts overnight.” Today, with a Facebook-like FaithBook, you could make simultaneous converts overnight everywhere in the world!

(5)   Mr White says, “(Mr) Urquidi makes the case that the Internet is 'a place of encounter' and that 'it's not a tool, but rather a culture.'” Differently, I say as a digital denizen since 1991, the Internet is a tool and simultaneously a culture – and that is exemplified by Facebook. Everybody loves Facebook! Importantly, FaithBook can make people love their culture more!

Anyone can learn the Internet as long as one has the interest – and the perseverance to learn something intricate and globally appropriate. Well, I taught myself the language of the Internet, literally from zero, from typewriter-based journalism, since Innocents Day 1985, with WordStar Version 1.

Why not “FaithBook” as the Catholic gatherer of gospelers, believers, sharers?

“Facebook is the most popular social media platform among internet users in Philippines – Pulse Asia,” Kaela Malig says (GMA News Online, gmanetwork.com). An Internet hound since 1991, I know that Facebook is a free-for-all media.

Our Catholic FaithBook should be open to all, including the unbelievers – but no defamatory, or one-sided arguments please! You can be anti-Catholic on FaithBook, but you have to be careful in your argument or presentation – Catholics know their logic.

Oh yes, members of the Catholic clergy could correct other members – in polite terms, not derogatory or insulting.

Remember: The slogan is “Love Is Kindness, Everyone” (LIK,E). as defined by the slogan, love will have to be practiced at all times in all places on FaithBook.

“The opposite of love is not hate,” says Elie Wiesel, “it is indifference.” Now then, FaithBook will ensure that:

Catholics will practice love! And? Love will prevail!@517

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