How has the internet impacted your Catholic Faith?

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I’m a cradle Catholic who grew up attending Mass each Sunday and CCD each week as well as being active in youth groups. Also our priests were always engaged with the parish families (thankfully the scandals didn’t affect us). So all in all I had a very Catholic upbringing. This was all before the advent of the internet and the World Wide Web. Now I’ve been an active internet user since the beginning, but only within the last year have I begun to use it to learn more about my faith. I have to say that there is a lot more to Catholicism than I had known. Many of the things I have learned are comforting, while others are confusing and even troubling. I was wondering if anyone else has had the same experience due to the availability of information through the internet.
 
It has had a very positive influence on my Catholic faith. Whenever I have a question about my faith, the answer is always a couple clicks away. I feel like the internet will have a very positive impact on Catholics. It allows people to immediately “call out” anything contrary to Church teaching by simply supplying a link to an official Catholic source.
 
The Internet is an amazing tool in the New Evangelization. It is allowing millions of people to learn about their Faith in ways never before possible!! It truly is an amazing thing.

And for me personally, it has helped me to find my dear sweet husband, from 3,000 miles away! 😃 And he has helped me to grow deeper in my Faith, and to love it all the more.

~Liza
 
In March 2006 I was convinced by many Catholic apologetic arguments and this was the beginning of my intellectual conversion. I’ve been studying thousands of atheist and Catholic & Protestant & Orthodox arguments and perspectives for a solid three years now and I am sure that Roman Catholicism is true. My formal conversion (baptism, confirmation, confession) will hopefully happen before summer starts. Thank God for the Internet!
 
Some positive some negative ways. It has exposed me to certain tempations that were hard to overcome, but at the same time it exposed me to a lot of religious discussion where I simply had to choose my ground and even to explain things. As I got to be more and more absolute in certain things, going into deeper and deeper details while explaining things to others, I couldn’t really say, “This is the faith of the Church, but I’m a bit relaxed here or there, or I take this or that with a pinch of salt or I’m still convincing myself.” There are many Catholic things I would never have read without the Internet, many problems I would never have approached.
 
I don’t think that without the knowledge I have gained about our glorious Faith on the internet that I would be as devoted to the Church. Anytime I need to know something, I can quickly search and find a good answer among the numerous, doctrinally true Catholic websites. I hunger to continue learning more and know that I will never understand everything.

I would never be able to afford all of the writings of our Church Fathers, yet can access much of the information on the web. I have only one Bible, but can access multiple translations online. I have both the US Catechism for Adults and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but can find a particular passage more quickly on the internet. Need a reference from a particular Papal Bull? Just a few keystrokes and I am there.

The internet can be as good as it can be evil; it is solely dependent upon the person at the keyboard which path will be taken.

Good post!

Kelly
 
I am a cradle Catholic, who left the church in my early teens (when my parents divorced), and came back as an adult after making many mistakes in my own life. I’ve been back 23 years. My first experiences with “internet Catholicism” were negative - had people questioning my sincerity, making me feel that I wasn’t “Catholic enough” for them. I’ve since learned to sift through, and to avoid certain forums. I have learned a lot that I never knew about my faith.
 
The internet has been a tremendous asset in helping me grow more deeply in my faith, but there have been some rough patches. The first goes back to how I was catechized. I attended CCD classes back in the late 70’s though the mid 80’s. That was before the current catechism was written, but after the Baltimore Catechism had become antiquated. Actually, I never heard of the Baltimore Catechism until recently, so I’m just assuming that our teachers considered it out of date. We came from a small parish, so almost every parent was involved in the CCD classes. I’m not quite sure how much training they themselves had. Overall I think they did a wonderful job; however, one thing they did not prepare me for is venial versus mortal sin. They did a good job explaining how venial sins damage our relationship with God and mortal sins destroy our relationship. But when teaching how to discern the difference between the two, we were taught that breaking one of the Ten Commandments was mortal and everything else was venial. Well that sounded good to me. As written, it’s not that hard to obey the Decalogue. So all this time I was thinking that I was living a good Catholic life until about two years ago, when I found the current catechism online and read through it’s take on the Ten Commandments. Needless to say, I was floored by how short I fall. Now two years later, I’m still trying to reconcile my life with the Catechism.

The other challenge that internet has had on my faith is anti-catholicism. Somehow, I lived my whole life without experiencing any prejudice to speak of. Then I found several anti-Catholic websites and message boards and for awhile I became obsessed with them. In a way, I became addicted to the anger they stirred in me. Before I found them, I had the highest respect for our fellow Christians who happened to be non-Catholic, but these sites destroyed a lot charity in my heart. Eventually, I had to swear them off, and I think I’m better off for it.
 
The internet brings a lot of information to us for free but without guidance.

I love having the informstion but know I need guidance from those that are strong in the Catholic teaching.

For me I have found some of that guidance here at this site and other places. With out the guidance I have received here and from speakers like Father John Corapi, Scott Hahn, and a local TV show (“The One True Faith”) I would have been as misguided as many protestants.

I also found that guidance from our home Catholic church lacked the needed guidance but would not have known when the local advise was misguided if not for the internet.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the internet is an awesome tool for knowledge so long as we have the right guidance to help us understand it.

God Bless and Peace,

Jack
 
Hi Jack:
I’m glad I came accross your thread. This seems to be a good place to post “Finding time during Lent”; an article I found on Catholic Exchange web-site.
The author who loves the internet probably as much as we do is trying to come to grips with his Lenten sacrifices: Should he make one of his ‘sacricices’ not being on line as much during this Holy Season.
I have to confess with some embarrassment–I don’t think I can. I love to read as author does, my Conservative newspapers-- and most of all posting on Catholic message boards such as this one.
Are there others who feel the same?

catholicexchange.com/node/34016
 
The internet has been an awesome tool. When I was “lost” and trying to be found, I found a lot of information and encouragement on the sacrament of reconciliation. I was able to read and reread.

Even now, I find a lot of information that I never knew about through the internet and various bulletin boards. There is quite a bit that I might never have heard about if I depended only on my local parish, friends, and neighbors. I wouldn’t even know enough to know what I didn’t know.

On bulletin boards I can reach out and ask a question and someone will have an answer within a very short time.
 
The Internet had a major impact on my conversion by hooking me up to forums where patient people would answer my questions and by providing my with links to a wealth of information.

I think I pro’ly would have converted without the internet, because I was also buying books, but the internet made it easier.

DaveBj
 
In many ways, it’s been great. As a poorly catechized cradle Catholic, I’ve had to essentially self-educate as an adult, and the internet has been invaluable. These forums are a treasure trove, along with the Vatican website, the bible and online catechism on the USCCB site (please, no flames, I know many here dislike them), Catholic.org, etc.

On the other hand, I worry constantly about my appearance, the way I dress, if I’m sinning when men look at me and I have dressed modestly and done nothing to catch their attention, and if I’m causing scandal (and thus sinning again) because we are infertile and everyone probably thinks we’re using birth control. I didn’t worry about these things before, and I’m wondering if I need to limit my time on such websites just to get a bit of normal perspective.
 
I would say that the internet has had a huge impact on my faith, but that only started during Lent of 2005 with the illness of Pope John Paul II. When his health was on the front page of the Yahoo News and I checked out what many posters were saying about the Catholic faith under the message boards of these stories, I found that I could not help by refute their campaign of misinformation. I was only a rather new Catholic at the time, so I had to spend a lot of time in a panic over what I was reading, then go and look it all up, sort it all out and respond. I didn’t know about this website at the time, so I had to go and find all of the standard apologetics type information myself. As the weeks of all of this passed there began to be a regular group of Catholic and anti-Catholic posters. Some of us actually became friends and some of the anti-Catholic posters actually realized maybe they didn’t know all that they thought they knew. It was kind of nice.

I did eventually find this website later that summer, and would say that my faith has continued to grow by leaps and bounds. I still consider myself a work in progress and am learning every day.
 
I have lost some peace at mass. I now know many of the things that people think. I rather wish I didn’t. Either that, or that I had the maturity to ignore the information.

Also, simplicity seems hard to maintain while reading the internet, at least for me. It is much easier if I stick to books that I own, but less fun.

It has been really nice to find other people like myself, who actually like to talk about moral theology.
 
The Internet is an amazing tool in the New Evangelization. It is allowing millions of people to learn about their Faith in ways never before possible!! It truly is an amazing thing.
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Ergo … my You Tube Channel and my Blog. Not that I’m promoting myself or anything. LOL!!! (Yes, I am promoting myself … but it’s for a good cause!)

I’m videotaping a class taught by my Adult Catholic Ed teacher, Vic Scaravilli, and I’m posting a long series of ten-minute clips on the Internet. Let’s just say, I have a GREAT teacher. I introduce him in Episode I (taping myself) and he appears in Episode II. He is powerful!

You can see the beginnings of this project, and other videos I’m producing on my You Tube channel, linked below “Button Digital Studio.” When I’ve got more footage, I’ll tell you more about Vic Scaravilli.

The Internet is a POWERFUL tool for evangelization. I think video is the future.

For example, I made this really stupid video about a month ago where I taped myself reciting the Nicene Creed. It’s gotten over 200 views! I didn’t think anyone would bother watching it. But people do! And I got a lot of positive feedback.

Even though You Tube and My Space are … well … sewers … it does NOT mean that they’re not fitting places to preach the Gospel. We must remember that Our Lord appeared to St. Bernadette in a pig stye.

Yeah, the Internet is full of filth, BUT we can turn that around by presenting the mirror opposite. We should preach the Gospel in a sewer.

And also, have you guys heard of Father Mickler yet? He’s pretty new, too. I’ve got a link to his You Tube channel on my You Tube channel. (You can subscribe to other peoples’ channels). He’s fantastic! He even debunked that Jesus Tomb thing with one ten-minute video. He totally rocks!

The Internet offers a place for a whole new breed of Apologist. We should not limit ourselves to media. Use it all! Print, audio and video.

Didn’t the Vatican II document Inter Mirifica speak of this?

God Bless!
 
In February of 2002, my husband and I were kicked out (ousted) from our Evangelical Free Church. It was a terrifying event, complete with a tribunal of “deacons” who didn’t even know us. The charges were brought against us by a woman pastor who was lying; in fact, a year after we were ousted, she was fired from that church when she was caught in a lie.

I had been evangelical Protestant for over 40 years. My whole life was my church; I usually was in church involved in some ministry at least five days/evenings week. All my friends were in my church.

After the ousting, I didn’t trust any Christians.

But I knew that the Lord had said to “not forsake assembling ourselves together.” I knew that Christians can’t do it alone.

Somehow I found out about the “Daily Office,” and I found the website universalis.com/

This was a soul-saver for me. I could pray these prayers knowing that somewhere in the world, someone was praying the same prayers. These invisible, unknown Christians were my “fellowship” for a long time until I had the courage to associate with Christians in person again.

BTW, I converted to Catholicism in April 2004.
 
Cat said:
In February of 2002, my husband and I were kicked out (ousted) from our Evangelical Free Church. It was a terrifying event, complete with a tribunal of “deacons” who didn’t even know us. The charges were brought against us by a woman pastor who was lying; in fact, a year after we were ousted, she was fired from that church when she was caught in a lie.

I had been evangelical Protestant for over 40 years. My whole life was my church; I usually was in church involved in some ministry at least five days/evenings week. All my friends were in my church.
Click to expand...
Cat, that is heart wrenching! :blessyou:
 
Cat said:
In February of 2002, my husband and I were kicked out (ousted) from our Evangelical Free Church. It was a terrifying event, complete with a tribunal of “deacons” who didn’t even know us. The charges were brought against us by a woman pastor who was lying; in fact, a year after we were ousted, she was fired from that church when she was caught in a lie.

I had been evangelical Protestant for over 40 years. My whole life was my church; I usually was in church involved in some ministry at least five days/evenings week. All my friends were in my church.

After the ousting, I didn’t trust any Christians.

But I knew that the Lord had said to “not forsake assembling ourselves together.” I knew that Christians can’t do it alone.

Somehow I found out about the “Daily Office,” and I found the website universalis.com/

This was a soul-saver for me. I could pray these prayers knowing that somewhere in the world, someone was praying the same prayers. These invisible, unknown Christians were my “fellowship” for a long time until I had the courage to associate with Christians in person again.

BTW, I converted to Catholicism in April 2004.
Click to expand...
Cat:
Do you know that I sent someone affiliated with the Berean Beacon prayers from univeralis; and he sent them back claiming he didn’t want anything to do with “Papist Prayers”.
These people are so blinded by their hate for the RCC, that they call psalms “Papist”
 
Maratom said:
Cat:
Do you know that I sent someone affiliated with the Berean Beacon prayers from univeralis; and he sent them back claiming he didn’t want anything to do with “Papist Prayers”.
These people are so blinded by their hate for the RCC, that they call psalms “Papist”
Click to expand...
:eek: WOW. 😦

The Internet has been my Catechism class. I really enjoy the various forums and all the discussions.

But I find that it also tends to be a bit shallow. We get into a lot of stuff, all over the place - subjects I would never have thought of researching on my own - but we are always skimming the surface. We can never “go deep” because there are always beginners and even unbelievers throwing stuff in that forces everyone back to the beginning again.

So, my answer is that the Internet provides a wonderful and very thorough introduction to the Catholic faith, but to go deeper, you need to read books and have serious discussions with knowledgable priests and theologians. But it definitely lets you know the range of subjects available, and as someone above pointed out, it certainly gives us a thorough grounding on the essential beliefs and practices.
 
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