The church will become small ...She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built [like CAF]

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A secular culture does not appear out of a vacuum, and affects rich and poor in industrialized countries. Meanwhile, poorer countries want the same industrialization.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
We are starting to have younger families move in, people of various ethnicities in a neighborhood that was once lily-white, and it is refreshing to see children playing, riding their bicycles, and the other day, the neighbor boy was even climbing a tree. As the elderly people are dying off (that may sound cruel but it’s the truth), it seems that families who want a safe, well-kept (fairly strict HOA), attractive, affordable neighborhood are discovering ours. It’s all good
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Your neighborhood provides a good analogy for how the Church should develop. The neighborhood provided something different and needed than what the “world” had. Good disciples (the retirees), a safe environment, good governance (HOA/clergy), and diversity and welcome. But it only had those things because it was first a separate community in which the residents developed it into a place of welcome.
 
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ralfyman said:
A secular culture does not appear out of a vacuum, and affects rich and poor in industrialized countries. Meanwhile, poorer countries want the same industrialization
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As Pope Francis would tell you, these countries do not want ideological colonization.
 
Back in the day, AOL and Yahoo Groups were THE most active discussion groups on the internet.

Then came forums. CAF, Fish Eaters and Defenders of the Faith were the three top Catholic forums. Fish Eaters closed a few years back. DCF moved from Steve Ray’s to AveMaria Radio’s website. CAF had less moderation, so, there were more daily posts while DCF was a board where people giving answers contrary to the Faith were swiftly dealt with, so they were more reliable.

A few years ago, forums began to lose traffic to Facebook Groups, and then to Reddit, Disquors, etc.

Why would a ministry or org pay for the upkeep of a forum when they can open a moderated Facebook group for free?

Nature of the beast of communication is change.
 
TheLittleLady said:
A few years ago, forums began to lose traffic to Facebook Groups, and then to Reddit, Disquors, etc.

Why would a ministry or org pay for the upkeep of a forum when they can open a moderated Facebook group for free?

Nature of the beast of communication is change.
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But are any of these putting people in the pews?
 
In my experience of 20 + years working in Instruction in the Catholic Faith for both Catecheumans/Candidates, as well as moderating from Yahoo groups to forums to Facebook groups, I cannot count the number of people who have come into or returned to the Church because of these online discussions.

In evangelization, we speak of thresholds. Trust and Curiosity are both thresholds that are often taken in an anonymous, online way.
 
Regarding the rise of interest in Islam.

In one sense, so what? I didn’t decide to remain Catholic because it is hip, cool, popular or exotic. I did, however, see that it’s moral claims matched up with how the real world works, at its other claims are self-consistent.
I was already working from a belief that there is a God.

I think a lot of Western people look at non-white, non-western people through a romantic lens, and this is what is attracting them to these Muslim sites.
Amd if they’re preaching common sense solutions to problems, that’s attractive.
We all like common sense.

Whether we follow common sense is another ball of wax, and I don’t know if these you tubers are addressing some of the more strict morals of their religious faith, and what the response is.

I have noticed, that Black people and foreigners are given a lot more leeway in the public square when they teach morality than White people.
 
TheLittleLady said:
I cannot count the number of people who have come into or returned to the Church because of these online discussions.
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We are fishing in a lake, and we have caught a couple dozen fish. But in the ocean there are millions more fish to catch. Our lake fishing gear doesn’t work in the ocean. So you might say, that’s fine, let’s keep fishing in the lake. But the lake is running out of fish, and we are running out of fishing gear. In fact, one of the biggest fishing boats (this forum) is damaged beyond repair and is going to have to be scrapped at the end of this month.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
I have noticed, that Black people and foreigners are given a lot more leeway in the public square when they teach morality than White people.
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This is an example of how the culture has become hostile to Christianity.

If you look at the evidence a bit closer, you’ll see that it is not the speaker’s race or skin color that conditions the cultural response. You say, “Black people … are given a lot more leeway in the public square when they teach morality than White people.” Well, compare how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (who is African-American) is treated in the public square versus say, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Both are “minorities” (a dated term since Hispanics are well on our way to becoming the majority), but one is a a practicing Catholic and the other is a dissenter.

The media puts Justice Thomas in the same box with, for example, newly-minted Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who is also a practicing Catholic but who is European-American. This shows you that race is not the determinant.
 
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Yet, my Lord promised that the gates of hell will not prevail. That we will be fishers of men, so, God supplies the tackle and gear and boats and my God is not short on resources!! The Holy Catholic Church is the barque (ship) of Peter, the Pope is at the helm and Jesus is the lighthouse.

It seems that CAF is your exclusive experience with online Catholic discussion. Maybe give another forum - CHN has a still-active forum https://community.chnetwork.org/

some Catholic Facebook groups

This one has 100 posts per day Facebook Groups

Or Catholic Facebook pages


The Reddit thread discussed above.
 
You make an interesting point. 🙂

I guess I was thinking back to a patient I had who was elderly and sick and she said, “why can’t I just die?”

The AA nurse’s aid in the rom with me replied to her, “now, miss X, you know that nobody dies until the Lord decides to bring them home.”

The patient was content with that.

But I’m pretty sure that if I had said it, my butt would have been sitting in HR that day so I could get scolded about preaching to the patients…
 
TheLittleLady said:
It seems that CAF is your exclusive experience with online Catholic discussion
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It isn’t. For one, I’ve been abused on Facebook for trying to evangelize there. Probably most of the people reading this have been as well. And that is how it is the moment you venture outside of the little Catholic bubbles on any of the big social media sites, which is where the online people actually are.

The Coming Home Network, which you linked to, used to have a public forum like this one. They have now made it private and registration-only. That’s an admission that having a public forum for Catholic discussion is a net negative (and so is the closure of CAF). Christopher Check, the president of Catholic Answers, told us all that these forums are of “inconclusive” value at best. I fail to see why that is not the case for all Catholic public online forums and discussion venues. If any such venues were successful, they would yield results in the pews–and today, they do not yield enough return to justify the ongoing expenditures of time, talent and treasure.

Catholic Answers did their homework thoroughly before coming to that conclusion. And I trust their judgment. There are quite a few people here slamming Catholic Answers for closing the forum, but they have yet to show that Mr. Check’s reasons or data are wrong. We have yet to see anyone provide an example of an online Catholic forum or similar medium that actually engages large numbers of people who are lapsed or non-Catholics so as to bring them back/home. It just doesn’t work!

Private forums, on the other hand, are worthwhile, which is why CHN became private. There are many such forums that already exist or are being started as offshoots of CAF.. But a private forum is for a limited, vetted audience; it has no ambition to actually go out into the culture and try to win huge numbers of souls. I submit to you that this is impossible to do in Western culture today, by means of a forum or otherwise.
TheLittleLady said:
Yet, my Lord promised that the gates of hell will not prevail. That we will be fishers of men, so, God supplies the tackle and gear and boats and my God is not short on resources!! The Holy Catholic Church is the barque (ship) of Peter, the Pope is at the helm and Jesus is the lighthouse.
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God is not short on resources. He is not the problem. And we, the fishermen, are not the problem either. The fish are the problem. They do not want to be caught because they do not want what we have to give, or what God has to give for that matter.

If you don’t think there is a problem, it’s either because you have already found your Benedict Option stable Catholic community and don’t venture outside of it very often, or because you belong to an older generation that is not living in the world at large, and no longer has young children who do.
 
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MarysLurker said:
Benedict Option stable Catholic community
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No clue, I am not a reader of (to put it charitably) politically and culturally questionable self proclaimed experts.
MarysLurker said:
don’t venture outside of it very often
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Again, not having something I do not know, I engage with people of every and no religion, every walk of life, multi cultural people every day of my life. I am in charge of outreach for a large parish.
MarysLurker said:
because you belong to an older generation that is not living in the world at large
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see above
MarysLurker said:
and no longer has young children who do
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Again, I am very involved with school children, young adults, etc.

There is a deep hunger for beauty and truth in the world today. It is my job to be a light and salt.
 
And, as you may know, the DCF forum disappeared, with no warning, around 2 weeks ago. Haven’t heard a reason why.
 
The Facebook DCF group says that there is a technical problem that they are working on
 
I did hear that tidbit from a member I recruited for the board, years back. I was guessing another hostile attack.
 
By “retention”, well, children grow up and go away to college (we are not a Uni town) or to more metropolitan areas for careers. Those who do stay in their home town, well, we have third and fourth generation members, we have babies baptized often, we have weddings.

Our parish is taking evangelization and discipleship very seriously, as is our entire Diocese. We are having Ananias Training here and across the Diocese.

https://siena.org/ananias

“Forming Intentional Disciples” is a must read for parish workers. All of our priests have had education in this important work.

I know other parishes who are seeing great rewards from Catholic Alpha.

Various programs from Formed.org have been fruitful.

Perhaps you can start a group in your parish!
 
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