L
LMorgan
Guest
I’m new here. I found this forum after a google search for “Catholic Forums”. I am glad I did.
A very brief backstory- I’ve lived about as straight-and-narrow a life as possible. I haven’t always been a good Catholic, but I have always tried to be a good person.
In 2002, I was accepted into a full time, residential national community service program in the Northeast US.
Having always been an avid hunter and target shooter my entire life, I had a fairly substantial collection of firearms. These were not permitted on the campus, so before entering the program, I sold them.
Keeping the story as short and brief as possible, one of the individuals who purchased some of them from me was an undercover agent working on the behalf of a Federal agency doing what amounted to “spot checks” on people legally selling firearms. Although every firearm I owned was legal and although this individual was established as being a lawful target shooter, it turned out that a function of his role was being the “token felon” for this agency. He mentioned that he had some problems in his past, but knowing this person from previous shooting matches (and being a stupid 22 year old kid) I gave him the benefit of the doubt and sold him some of my guns.
Fast forward nearly 4 years. I completed my year of national service, I became engaged, I moved a few states away to attend college and use a scholarship I had earned… I was notified that a number of officers had come to my previous address “looking for me”. I spoke to someone via the telephone, found out that I had been charged with a crime, and immediately traveled 1000 miles to turn myself in and deal with it.
When I was on the bus at the Indianapolis bus terminal on my way to turn myself in, I was in a bad way. I didn’t know what lay before me. Prison was the most likely possibility. Given that I had sold 3 firearms from my collection, it amounted to 3 individual charges, each a felony.
I won’t bother with any details, but I felt a serious need to contact a Priest and discuss a few things (while sitting in the middle of a bus terminal, in tears)
I called a number of “big city” Diocese, thinking that surely, there had to be some sort of “Press 9 to talk to a priest” button. Nothing. All I got was “Sorry, we are closed” messages. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, New York- there in my worst moment of need- “Sorry, We’re Closed”.
Thankfully, I found a Catholic church in my hometown that had an after-hours contact number for emergency last rites. I was able to reach a Priest, who unquestionably saved my life (along with a fairly substantial divine intervention that I’m still not entirely comfortable talking about)
I swore right then and there that I would do something to fix this. Being fairly technically literate, I just saw absolutely no reason in the year 2006 that concise lines of communication to our church fathers shouldn’t be available to people in situations like mine.
How many people considering suicide, abortions, crimes- suffering great loss, experiencing terrible grief- find themselves unable to seek council from our church?
Too many.
My idea is simple, and my idea is this.
I want to get a dedicated server that will host 10 “liveperson” accounts, which is a technology that is commonly used by commercial enterprises to provide online “live chat” customer service.
I want to start with 10 “liveperson” enabled computers in 10 Catholic rectories, representing Western, Central, Eastern and GMT timezones so all hours can be covered. At any time, someone in need can log onto a computer and reach Catholic council. I have some experience in optimizing search engine organics and website management, so it should be widely available in a relatively short period of time, once it goes live.
Let me be clear that I am in no way begging for money. I can afford to start this on my own, and I will. I simply want to hear as many ideas as possible, since one man cannot possibly conceive of every variable. Also, it is important that I post this on a catholic forum, as if I were to post it on any other kind of forum, the discussion would unquestionably devolve into a debate about the faith.
No, this idea will not solve every problem in the world. No, it is not perfect, but it is something- something that could save the life of someone just like me, and something that I’m confident is needed.
I welcome all ideas, comments and criticisms of this idea. Particularly, my main concern is that when something like this is made available to the public, there is no question that there will be people who think it is an appropriate venue to “argue with a priest”. I want to keep this to a minimum, since there just isn’t enough bandwidth and time to deal with such people.
Thanks
LM
A very brief backstory- I’ve lived about as straight-and-narrow a life as possible. I haven’t always been a good Catholic, but I have always tried to be a good person.
In 2002, I was accepted into a full time, residential national community service program in the Northeast US.
Having always been an avid hunter and target shooter my entire life, I had a fairly substantial collection of firearms. These were not permitted on the campus, so before entering the program, I sold them.
Keeping the story as short and brief as possible, one of the individuals who purchased some of them from me was an undercover agent working on the behalf of a Federal agency doing what amounted to “spot checks” on people legally selling firearms. Although every firearm I owned was legal and although this individual was established as being a lawful target shooter, it turned out that a function of his role was being the “token felon” for this agency. He mentioned that he had some problems in his past, but knowing this person from previous shooting matches (and being a stupid 22 year old kid) I gave him the benefit of the doubt and sold him some of my guns.
Fast forward nearly 4 years. I completed my year of national service, I became engaged, I moved a few states away to attend college and use a scholarship I had earned… I was notified that a number of officers had come to my previous address “looking for me”. I spoke to someone via the telephone, found out that I had been charged with a crime, and immediately traveled 1000 miles to turn myself in and deal with it.
When I was on the bus at the Indianapolis bus terminal on my way to turn myself in, I was in a bad way. I didn’t know what lay before me. Prison was the most likely possibility. Given that I had sold 3 firearms from my collection, it amounted to 3 individual charges, each a felony.
I won’t bother with any details, but I felt a serious need to contact a Priest and discuss a few things (while sitting in the middle of a bus terminal, in tears)
I called a number of “big city” Diocese, thinking that surely, there had to be some sort of “Press 9 to talk to a priest” button. Nothing. All I got was “Sorry, we are closed” messages. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, New York- there in my worst moment of need- “Sorry, We’re Closed”.
Thankfully, I found a Catholic church in my hometown that had an after-hours contact number for emergency last rites. I was able to reach a Priest, who unquestionably saved my life (along with a fairly substantial divine intervention that I’m still not entirely comfortable talking about)
I swore right then and there that I would do something to fix this. Being fairly technically literate, I just saw absolutely no reason in the year 2006 that concise lines of communication to our church fathers shouldn’t be available to people in situations like mine.
How many people considering suicide, abortions, crimes- suffering great loss, experiencing terrible grief- find themselves unable to seek council from our church?
Too many.
My idea is simple, and my idea is this.
I want to get a dedicated server that will host 10 “liveperson” accounts, which is a technology that is commonly used by commercial enterprises to provide online “live chat” customer service.
I want to start with 10 “liveperson” enabled computers in 10 Catholic rectories, representing Western, Central, Eastern and GMT timezones so all hours can be covered. At any time, someone in need can log onto a computer and reach Catholic council. I have some experience in optimizing search engine organics and website management, so it should be widely available in a relatively short period of time, once it goes live.
Let me be clear that I am in no way begging for money. I can afford to start this on my own, and I will. I simply want to hear as many ideas as possible, since one man cannot possibly conceive of every variable. Also, it is important that I post this on a catholic forum, as if I were to post it on any other kind of forum, the discussion would unquestionably devolve into a debate about the faith.
No, this idea will not solve every problem in the world. No, it is not perfect, but it is something- something that could save the life of someone just like me, and something that I’m confident is needed.
I welcome all ideas, comments and criticisms of this idea. Particularly, my main concern is that when something like this is made available to the public, there is no question that there will be people who think it is an appropriate venue to “argue with a priest”. I want to keep this to a minimum, since there just isn’t enough bandwidth and time to deal with such people.
Thanks
LM
