Positive Conversations with Other Catholics

Status
Not open for further replies.
Tis_Bearself said:
and not doing too much better in person.
Click to expand...
I’m in a weekly Scripture study group with my parish. Right now, it’s very positive, but it hasn’t always been so. We used to have some who worried rather outspokenly about the state of the Church, but they gave up on us and quit the group. On the one hand, I miss the diversity they lent to the group, but on the other hand, we now enjoy a tighter focus on Scripture.
 
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself said:
I’m subject to the same amount of seemingly arbitrary and perplexing flagging that everyone else complains about
Click to expand...
Off thread, but I totally feel your pain. However, I am on another site that used to be bad, but has since deteriorated into the worst pit imaginable. I’ll get flagged here for something totally innocent (“honest, it was a Perfect phone call”) and I’m grateful to be in a place with standards at all.

Please, Sir, may I have another.
 
During some of the conversations where you’ve posted, I have been baffled as to why you or others have been flagged.

I don’t know how to fix the flagging system here. I’m not complaining about forum rules, but it is tough for a forum to be happy with the many temporary and permanent suspensions I see here. Some of them are well deserved, but others I don’t really understand.
 
It’s true we’ve lost a lot of generally good contributors. I wish when the mods make suspension decisions, they would consider the person’s overall contributions to the forum so we don’t lose priests, religious, and others who have been making good contributions for months or years. Once people are suspended, a lot of them choose to not return, or to scale back their posting to a great degree, and we’ve lost a lot of good, level-headed and generally positive contributors that way.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for posting this. I’ve been wondering the same thing. I’ll be honest, I often feel that CAF as of late has made my interactions… more challenging, and I fully admit that I’m part of the problem!

I was thinking about it just the other day; I wasn’t of this same attitude when I first came to this site almost 10 years ago. I can’t blame the site, either, although I have picked up a lot from it, including both good and bad habits for how I approach people. Society as a whole feels challenging to have a meaningful discussion with anyone about anything of substance.

It’s in my prayers these days to have intelligent and pleasant (and just plain fun) dialogue with people, but I’m not even sure I can find people who would tolerate me in the same pew on Sunday! I’m almost dreading going to Mass (and no where else is that pleasant).

I hope you find something. I hope we all do.
 
There seem to be a lot of us coming here to have reasonable Catholic conversation with Catholics, because we don’t meet or befriend many Catholics in our daily life. It’s a bit unfortunate that this forum is one of the only places to do it, because the focus of this forum isn’t really on friendly chit chat but rather more geared towards many controversial topics.
 
I don’t think that we humans do anonymity very well. I do think it tends to bring out the worst in us, so, I suppose, we should probably work harder at civility and assuming the best when conditions leave us mostly anonymous… There is much more accountability in a face-to-face conversation.
 
I really like the “let’s pray a perpetual rosary” thread. There’s nothing negative about that. In fact, there’s a lot of places like that on this forum. You get to hear beautiful stories from people of all backgrounds. But if you want something unique. Something exactly like what you’d envisioned, why not make it on these forums? Or even right here? I’m a bit confused though, do you want somewhere to debate in a happy manner or just be happy in general?
 
Last edited:
That place exists between the two of us, and others for whom “activism” means active prayer. We rush around, generating stomach acid and headaches as if the future of the world was not in God’s hands!
"When the Son of Man returns, will He find any faith on earth?
Click to expand...
All of this negative news (based on half the story), gossip and detraction seduces us into taking our eyes off the Lord. What happened to Peter when the wind and waves caused him to divert his attention from the Lord?

We get the same result.

If we must “do something”, let it be prayer.
 
Last edited:
I think I’m slightly more afraid to speak sometimes because I always feel like someone might find a problem with what I say or shoot my words down. I have the tendency to double guess myself when I want to say something. That and I just have a hard time engaging in a heated topic without it being face to face to read off the other’s emotions. But I want to be able to speak up more, be positive and so on.

In the end, I try my best to be positive in conversations and welcome it when I do feel comfortable enough to engage in one. Always keeping in mind It can be tricky over the internet since we all are protected behind screens and our tones can be muddled through what we text. We’re all faulted humans
 
Chistian-ity said:
I’m a bit confused though, do you want somewhere to debate in a happy manner or just be happy in general?
Click to expand...
I agree with you that the “Let’s Pray a Perpetual Rosary” thread is very nice, as are the prayer threads generally, the art threads, and usually the saint threads - except where they involve someone complaining that saint X doesn’t deserve canonization/ was canonized too fast/ the Church is canonizing too many saints etc.

Likewise it seems like many other threads about the rosary get sidetracked into people complaining about how they don’t like to say rosaries, feel pressured into saying rosaries, don’t like Marian devotion generally, etc. The nature of this forum is that people are allowed/ encouraged to make such statements and discuss such topics within reason here. But it’s not really pleasant to have every Rosary discussion draw such comments.

To me, it’s pretty simple. If you don’t want to pray Rosaries then pray something else. If you don’t like the fact that Saint X was canonized then don’t venerate that saint. No need to have a long discussion over it though and especially in a thread that wasn’t created for that type of discussion.
 
Last edited:
I like the Casual Discussion section on this forum for the very reasons you say…it has many enjoyable sides to it. One person made a thread on scripture and it is a witness of the love of sacred Scripture, then there are the fun ones…games, poems, cartoons, jokes, made up stories, and other things…pictures you like, I go there for positive times.
 
Last edited:
I belong to some online mom-groups like this. They are absolutely refreshing! I think the moms have all just decided to uplift each other. There is enough rudeness in the world. We don’t need that online. This is why I don’t even know why I stay here sometimes. It’s the most unkind group (overall) I’ve ever belonged to online. And people seem to use “it’s the internet” as an excuse - which makes no sense to me. Aren’t you still you?? Since when does a certain mode of communication give anyone a free pass to jump down another person’s throat?! Mystifying. But I appreciate that this forum is a venue to asking very real questions about very important topics. You have to just be prepared to get verbally battered for whatever you ask/say. :crazy_face:
 
Last edited:
You know I sort of realized this yesterday while on CAF - I don’t visit too often but when I do, I find myself coming way more agitated and disturbed then when I started. Partly it’s my fault because I only look at the stuff which “triggers” me. I came to the conclusion that, at least in the way that I am using it, these forums do more harm than good. I will be signing off and closing my account.
 
I have considered permanently leaving at least twice and still kicking the idea around to be honest. One big problem is that there seems to be literally no place else to go to have decent Catholic discussions. Other forums either don’t have the traffic, or they have worse conflicts and issues than this forum does, or they’re so skewed towards either traditionalism or modernism that there’s no room for somebody in the middle like myself.
 
I just recently started muting all the topics that I think are inappropriate, should be asked somewhere else…like go to a priest, read your catechism or go to a counselor. Topics that go against Church teaching, against Christianity, or are a ridiculous to waste time on. Also mute topics where I get flagged. I guess I am safe in the Casual Discussion spot 😂 😶
 
Hm. I believe at the time CAF “switched over” to where we are now - some members ended up at CCF…

I lurked there for a day or two but never drew any conclusions, but the vibe seemed “milder” IIRC

❔❕❔
 
Last edited:
Their terms say your profile will be labeled “Catholic Not in Communion with the Church” if you say something they decide disagrees with Church teaching. That was enough to scare me off, since it seemed based on some arbitrary moderator judgment.
There are some nice people who used to be here now over there, but I’m not comfortable with some moderator “excommunicating” me if for example I don’t hate Fr Martin enough for their liking.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top