Catholic resources - how reliable?

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Ontheway

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With so many internet resources claiming to be Catholic, the maze can lead down unexpected paths.
My parish site lists the following resources. Can anyone give me some feedback on these?

Catholic News Agency
The Catholic Times
National Catholic Reporter
America Magazine
US Catholic
 
Here’s a reliably orthodox website that gives reviews for other Catholic websites. It rates Catholic websites on fidelity, resources, and usability:
catholicculture.org/culture/resources/

Out of the ones you listed, the National Catholic Reporter or “NCR”, America Magazine, and US Catholic are on CatholicCulture.Org’s danger list for being unorthodox. Note: don’t get the NCR confused with the faithfully Catholic National Catholic Register. The Reporter is bad, but the Register is good.

Usually, a dead giveaway for when a website is not faithfully Catholic is if they give links to other notoriously unorthodox websites. If they have links to the Vatican’s official website and to EWTN, you can be pretty sure that they are faithfully Catholic.
 
This is something I wondered as well, but probably would not have asked. I’m glad someone else did!
 
livingwordunity said:
Here’s a reliably orthodox website that gives reviews for other Catholic websites. It rates Catholic websites on fidelity, resources, and usability:
catholicculture.org/culture/resources/

Out of the ones you listed, the National Catholic Reporter or “NCR”, America Magazine, and US Catholic are on CatholicCulture.Org’s danger list for being unorthodox. Note: don’t get the NCR confused with the faithfully Catholic National Catholic Register. The Reporter is bad, but the Register is good.

Usually, a dead giveaway for when a website is not faithfully Catholic is if they give links to other notoriously unorthodox websites. If they have links to the Vatican’s official website and to EWTN, you can be pretty sure that they are faithfully Catholic.
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Thank you for your reply and the link to the catholic.org list of “danger” websites. This is an extensive list that includes some sites that until now seemed harmless. There is also an extensive list of recommended sites. A nice tool, but as I looked at the criteria of evaluation it occurred to me that there is an opportunity here to introduce the “imprimatur” procedure for websites, that is used for printed materials. What do you all think of this?
 
Ontheway said:
With so many internet resources claiming to be Catholic, the maze can lead down unexpected paths.
My parish site lists the following resources. Can anyone give me some feedback on these?

Catholic News Agency
The Catholic Times
National Catholic Reporter
America Magazine
US Catholic
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The National Catholic Reporter and America Magazine would be what is often referred to as “liberal”. If you’re going to subscribe to a newspaper, my recommendation would be the National Catholic Register (rather than the “Reporter”).

I think the Catholic News Agency (CNA) is okay. (I’ve only gone there when a link was provided for an article/news report I wanted to read.)
I’m not familiar with “The Catholic Times” or “US Catholic”.
 
Nita said:
I think the Catholic News Agency (CNA) is okay. (I’ve only gone there when a link was provided for an article/news report I wanted to read.)
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Yeah, I think CNA is ok, too. It seems CA actually allows a CNA bot (which has over 12,000+ posts) to post news stories here such as: [CNA]
 
Ontheway said:
it occurred to me that there is an opportunity here to introduce the “imprimatur” procedure for websites, that is used for printed materials. What do you all think of this?
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I don’t think it would work since, unlike printed materials, websites (more specifically the info on the sites) are always changing.
 
suko said:
I don’t think it would work since, unlike printed materials, websites (more specifically the info on the sites) are always changing.
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Very good point. But when it comes to parish websites perhaps some sort of ‘imprimatur’ should be considered.
If my church’s web site directs the faithful to a handful of other websites and these sources offer an “alternative” view of Catholicism, it is a matter of some concern.
 
Isn’t one of the nicknames for the National Catholic Reporter the “National Catholic Distorter”?
 
ironchapman said:
Isn’t one of the nicknames for the National Catholic Reporter the “National Catholic Distorter”?
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Lol, yes, I’ve seen that term before. I’ve also seen them referred as “Fishwrap” ~ not really sure what that ones about, though, lol.

There was a post on Fr. Z’s blog a reply from Bishop Finn to a private inquiry asking about the NCR situation. Bishop Finn replied that one of his predecessors lost a court case attempting to legally force them to remove the word ‘Catholic’ from its name. He also noted that he has attempted to have them moderate their position ~ unfortunately without success.

The text of Bishop Finn’s letter may be found on Fr. Z’s blog in the response by Chantgirl, 14th from the top.
 
I use Catholic News Agency and I have not encountered anything wrong with it.

I would however avoid NCR which is highly liberal and is know as fish wrap.
 
Last night I saw a movie on a strictly secular channel called “Damian the Saint of Molokai”. I was pleasantly surprised.
 
Ontheway said:
Thank you for your reply and the link to the catholic.org list of “danger” websites. This is an extensive list that includes some sites that until now seemed harmless. There is also an extensive list of recommended sites. A nice tool, but as I looked at the criteria of evaluation it occurred to me that there is an opportunity here to introduce the “imprimatur” procedure for websites, that is used for printed materials. What do you all think of this?
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As suko said, websites are always changing, which makes an imprimatur for websites unworkable. The best they could do is – like Catholic Answers – produce specific tracts that indvidually have an imprimatur and put those online. Giving a website as a whole an “imprimatur” would be giving them license to say anything they want in the future and claim authority. That wouldn’t help anyone out.

I find CatholicCulture.org’s website reviews quite helpful, too, but keep in mind that they, too, are just another Catholic website run by a group of lay people. While I often agree with their opinions (and I find it helpful that they usually provide reasons for their ratings), they are not infallible website reviewers. No bishop has invested them with authority to make determinations on “fidelity” on behalf of the Church.

I sometimes go to National Catholic Reporter just to read John Allen, who is actually a very good journalist. But now he’s leaving NCReporter for the Boston Globe. So I won’t have any reason to go there anymore unless I need to increase my heart rate and blood pressure for some reason. 😛
 
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