Catholic Activism in the Age of the Social Internet

8/9/2019 Catholic Activism in the Age of the Social Internet

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Catholic Activism in the Age of the Social Internet

Delivered August 7th, 2010 at the Catholic New Media Celebration, Boston MA

Please attribute to Thomas Peters, www.AmericanPapist.com

(Online video archive: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8776585)

1. Why Catholic Activism Matters

Im going to talk today about Catholic activism. Im going to talk about moving from

discussing whats happening in the world in our blogs, podcasts and other social

media, into doing something about it. I believe that often we tend to get lost in the

details of running a blog or a social media enterprise. We obsess about the number

of comments our posts are receiving, the number of people listening to our podcast,the number of websites linking to us, and forget about why we are doing what we

are doing in the first place. My talk therefore begins with a vision of what Catholiconline activism is, and what it looks like in practice. Its something everyone can do,

no matter the focus of their blog, because I believe Catholic activism in its various

forms, is a calling all of us can pursue in small ways or, if we choose, big ways.

To be clear, Im not going to talk only about political activism, or Catholic social

activism, or even pro-life activism, Im going to talk about Catholic activism in

general and as a concept, and about online Catholic activism in particular. Im going

to explain the program, or mission statement which describes what I am trying to do

with my blog, American Papist. Im certainly not holding myself up as a perfect

example. Its a work in progress. But I believe it is a good and worthy work, and one

that needs the best allies, the men and women here today. I think you may also find,that crystallizing the mission of what your doing with your blog will help you in

lining up all the other details. And move your blog from being a personal project, to

becoming a fulfilling occupation (or hobby) that accomplishes something you can berightfully proud about.

2. Catholic Exceptionalism

For as much as we talk about what Catholics have in common with non-Catholics,for instance natural law, the common good, rational arguments ... Catholics do still

view the world differently. A Catholic is a sign - a good sign - of contradiction. Our

formation in the scriptures and teachings of the Church, our sacramental andEucharist-centered spirituality, the example in our lives of good and holy priests, the

pope - all of these things are only found together in one place - in the Catholic

Church. Thats why Catholics have something unique to say about anything

happening in the world - why we have Catholic cooking blogs, Catholic mommy

podcasts, Catholic movie reviews, and on and on - Christ transforms and elevates

every good thing in human life, and the Church is a constant teacher who forms the

perspective with which we view events in our daily lives.


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All of this means Catholics approach activism in a different way as well. Our faith

provides illumination about what is wrong (or right), it provides the target list, so

to speak, of what are goals should be, it tells us how we are to prioritize that list, and

finally, it tells us how to go about achieving those goals, for instance, with charity,

and hope in Christ. Catholic activism, furthermore, is communal. Catholics know thatwe are the body of Christ. We are meant to be the salt of the earth, and the candle

not hid underneath a basket.

3. What does the Catholic Activist Community look like?

This community for Catholic activism is both large and small. On the one hand, it is

large because we - us in this room - have a huge, amplified effect based on the

medium we use. Our ministries and apostolates touch more people than well ever

know. My American Papist facebook fanpage has over 5,000 fans. The averageperson on Facebook has 130 friends. Do you know what 5000 times 130 is? I was a

theology major - I had to use a calculator: 650,000. Talk about a megaphone to theworld. Even if you only have your 130 friends, the community of individuals you can

touch second-hand is almost 17,000 people. So, on the one hand our audience is

potentially, very large.

On the other hand, our community for Catholic activism is small. The number of

committed Catholics - or, as I like to call them, papists, in other words, people

who joyfully and fully accept all the teachings of the Magisterium, is small, certainly

in relation to the number of people living in the United States, and probably also in

relation to the number of people who, when asked, self-identify as Catholics. But the

fact that we are small need not discourage us.

Pope Benedict has written that creative minorities shape culture. They always

have. Small groups of individuals who know what they believe, why they believe,

and can communicate clearly what they believe to others, transform the cultural andsocial environment they inhabit. Committed Catholics are the creative minority in

America today. Consider who we are and what we have to offer our country,uniquely. We have our faith, and from that faith we have a mission to evangelize the

world, not only in the things of God, but also in the things of man. Christ reveals man

to himself, and whenever we act in Christ, we provide witness to what humanity iscalled to be. And while our experience of our faith and spirituality is subjective, the

content of our faith, and also importantly, our morality, is objective - which means

you can argue for it, convince others of its rightness. In particular, this group ofcommitted Catholics is well-placed to be a transformative, creative minority. Those

who employ media old and new in their ministries and apostolates, and indeed

private lives, are exceptionally well-equipped to do this work.

4. The Importance of Unity


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If Catholics in social media are to be an effective community, we must have unity.

The favorite narrative the secular press likes to apply to the Church is that there are

many ways to be Catholic, many disunited aspects of Catholicism. In short, there are

many different types of Catholics, and whose to say which one is the real Catholic?

The medias favorite Church is a chaotic, disunited one. That means what they fear

most, is a unified Church. This also means renegade or dissenting Catholics willautomatically get more visibility than faithful ones. Honestly, its as if the reporters

at the New York Times havent updated their rolodex since the 1970s. This used to

be a far more crippling situation for us Catholics who wanted to get the truth about

the Church in front of the world before the advent of social media. As important asthe old media still is, we dont need them like we used to - and they know it. Which

means theyre forced to listen to us again, at least more than they used to. This

situation also puts the burden back on us. We can no longer sit back and lament the

fact that no one is coming to interview us. We can fire up our web cam and record a

video for YouTube. We can write a blog post about it. We can link to a good newssummary on our Facebook profile. We can get together and make it a trending topic

on Twitter. We have, in a word, options.

This discussion brings up one of my favorite questions: why are the largest and

most read Catholic blogs all written by faithful Catholics? Why are there so few (and

until recently, almost no) liberal blogs? Because the liberals didnt need to blog,

didnt need a mechanism for self-publication - they had the old media. They already

had a platform. The democratization of media we are witnessing, is a very good

thing for orthodoxy.

5. The Laity Must Lead

Heres a complicated part of my speech, and I hope its a discussion we can return toduring the Q&A - in this quest to establish a vibrant community of Catholic activists -

the laity must lead. I love bishops. I love priests. I am honored to be personal friends

with many of each. But in this field, its the laity who must lead. When I was youngerI believed Catholic activism involved mostly letting a priest or bishop know that

there was a problem, and then hoping he would fix it. Many of us have probablyfallen into this temptation. Oh bishop, why dont you excommunicate him? Oh

father, why wont you write an article in the local paper about that horrible anti-

Catholic play thats coming out? They would listen to you. There is a place for theactive role of the clergy, but there is a void of strong lay Catholic leadership in this

country. And I do not mean to disparage the few prominent lay Catholic leaders

there are. But I think if you would ask them, they would appreciate reinforcements.Certainly in politics, we have been disappointed by person after person who has

betrayed their Catholic faith the first time it became a sacrifice for them to practice

it. Luckily, there is a wealth of things lay Catholics can do on their own initiative,

through the grace of their own baptism and confirmation, while respecting all the

clear lines which the Church has drawn over time.


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When the laity leads, when committed Catholics, with unity, in large numbers

undertake activism, surprising things happen. The world listens. I stumbled across

this phenomenon in the course of my blogging. Now, I had been blogging for years

before I noticed any tangible impact I was able to have. I got so used to simply

talking about something I didnt like, or praising something I did, and then moving

on, that I basically forgot that people were reading it, that it was having an effect ontheir lives, and opinions, and especially, that the people involved could be reading it.

This has changed over time. Im not sure where it first began, but the opportunity

was certainly made more available when I began to get more active in politics,

specifically pro-life politics and conservative politics in general. There is a systemthat pro-life and conservative organizations have worked out over time. It involves

lobbying, and involves going directly to people in positions of authority and trying

to influence them. Without intentionally deciding to do this, I began employing some

of those same techniques in my blogging and social media. Working with

CatholicVote, I began to promote their efforts to save the Mother Teresa stamp -secularists had demanded that the U.S. Postal Service withdraw it because they

found it offensive. When the Mother Teresa stamp is unveiled in a month inWashington DC, CatholicVote will bring 150,000 signatures of Catholics supporting

its release. Now, thats one good thing.

6. Catholic Activism in Action

Heres another, more surprising example. On March 29th of this year someone

mentioned they had seen a very offensive anti-Catholic ad on TV produced by Kayak,

a popular website that searches for the cheapest airplane ticket. It depicted two

young, repressed nuns who were counting the days before they could escape their

convent and break out their tiny bikinis on a carribean party beach. I did my papist

thing, I blogged about it and explained why it was offensive. Then I took a secondstep, I told my readers how they could publicly tell Kayak they werent going to use

their services on Facebook and Twitter. This means that people who do use Kayak,

when they searched Kayak on Twitter or visited their Facebook page, wereconfronted with dozens of Catholics quietly explaining why they werent going to go

with Kayak anymore. Essentially this was a streetside demonstration on Kayaksvirtual property. And you can bet the Kayak people had some quick meetings on

their end, because they pulled the ad (even from YouTube) the very same day.

Kayaks chief marketing officer got in touch with me and personally apologized. Iwas happy to inform my readers that I intended to use Kayak again. Kayak, as a

business, quickly decided it wasnt worth singling-out and alienating Catholics. And

they made a smart business move - and Catholics stood publicly and effectively onprinciple. What I think made this most effective was that we interacted with Kayak

on its territory. We didnt issue a press release, we - as Catholics - showed up in the

companys virtual space. Which made it easy for them to listen to us, and see what

harmful effects their marketing decision had had. I believe theyll think twice before

they go after those backward, repressed Catholics again.


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Thats just one example. Ill name just one more. On June 13th, during the World

Cup, I posted the video of an anti-Catholic ad produced by carmaker Hyundai which

depicted a sacrilegious soccer Mass. Through our efforts in emailing Hyundai, they

also pulled the ad off of the airwaves, and sent notes of apologies to anyone who

contacted them. On this issue my blog was joined by many other Catholic blogs that

contributed in the email campaign. Companies listen to unified, numerous criticism.And the unique message from Catholic activists - a unified, reasonable, rational

message originating from a huge number of people in an intense frame of time -

quickly lets them know that they are on the wrong side of an issue. They cant

dismiss it, because they know they are dismissing it at their own peril and fortune.Conversely, our wider audience those who see what we are doing are faced with

questions about the rightness (or wrongness) of our activity. We become, I believe, a

good example to the world, when we stand together and stand up for what we

believe. We arent afraid, in other words, to put our faith into action.

Because we are entering the social age of media, grassroots means more than upper

tier. In the old days, if something outrageous was done that targeted Catholics, themajor Catholic organizations - such as Bill Donoghue at the Catholic League - would

issue a fiery press release, Bill would appear on the major cable networks

(remember what I said about rolodexes?)... and it ended there. Typically, no

widespread support would materialize behind him, and the offending companies or

individuals would shrug it off. If you pay attention to these things, the Catholic

League still fires off multiple press releases a day. But the game has changed.

Companies and individuals arent worried about someone who they are used to

seeing offended, acting offended again. They are worried if the people, be they

potential customers or possible supporters, start speaking out. Those powerful in

the media and the culture have become adept at marginalizing individuals. They can

marginalize Bill Donoghue (Im only using him as a visible example) - what theycant marginalize as easily is thousands, and tens of thousands of people. When

those who count power as everything see me, they can scoff. When I say I work with

an organization which includes 500,000 members, and youll be hearing from them,they may scoff, but they do it privately. In public, they listen.

7. Catholic Activism within the Catholic community

Catholic online activism is not only targeted at the world outside. It can be fruitfullyemployed to improve the situation within the Church. I have organized email and

phone campaigns to support bishops who have had to make hard (and right)

decisions in their diocese. I have organized campaigns that criticize poor decisionsmade by, say, Catholic universities that invited pro-abortion Presidents to speak at

their commencement. That one, conducted with the Cardinal Newman Society,

resulted in hundreds of thousands of emails, and national press coverage. The

volume of the activities proved to the mainstream media and national audience that

our complaint was not a fringe hang-up. What was happening offended the

sensibilities and principles of a huge swath of Catholics. People are smart, they

know if a few hundred thousand people are willing to visit a website and enter their


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information, many more times that agree with the ones who troubled themselves to

do something about it. Any person who was called upon to explain the Catholic

position couldnt be marginalized as easily for his views, because that individual

could point to the unfakeable grassroots support which followed it.

Catholic online activism is still in its infancy stages. We havent even begun to tapthe potential of mobilizing active Catholics to lobby for fair treatment of our faith

and figures of faith in the public square, for Catholic politicians who act Catholic

when in office, and even for the dignity of human life at all stages. Hopefully Ive

impressed upon you some sense of the good things that are waiting for us if weorganize, unite, and publicly fight for truth and justice as Catholics, in the online

continent, in the virtual marketplace of ideas, in the area where modern man lives

more and more of his life, forms his opinions, and seeks truth and justice.

8. The Need for Catholic Activism

All of this couldnt come too soon. Now that we know a bit better what potentialweapons for good are in are arsenal, Id like to continue with a description of the

battlefield and a call to Christian arms.

I have one foot in the Catholic world, and one in the U.S. political arena. And for five

years I have intensely consumed information and engaged in the battlefield of ideas,

both in the Church, and in the secular realm of U.S. politics. I easily spend 15 hours a

day (Sundays excepted) somewhere near a computer or my smartphone reading the

headlines, writing my stories, tweeting my alerts, attending the meetings, talking

with those who are in the trenches of the culture war.

Heres what were in for. Were in for dark days and hard times, especially if you area papist. And if we are to save Western culture, the American dream, and the

freedom of the Church to proclaim the good news this century, we must be the tip of

the spear. We need Catholics to live their faith, love their faith, and be proud of it.We need Catholics to start families, support their local parish, be aware of whats

happening in the world around them. And we must use every technological means atour disposal to even the playing field. We must blog the truth, podcast it, friend it on

facebook and re-tweet it. We must inhabit the digital continent and become as

familiar with its terrain as the first Jesuit missionaries who mapped the New World.

And like them, we must be willing to give up our lives for this mission. Not, please

God, literally. But the white martyrdom which is the charism of our age - the slow,

painful death of one who is mocked, shunned, ignored, and passed-over, simplybecause their are faithful. Anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice. Were

not crazy when we think that Catholics are treated with unique harshness and

particular violence in our culture. Look at how they treat the Holy Father. Every

time someone feels free to attack the pope in that fashion, its a good bet theyll free

to attack you for defending him, and what he stands for. No one likes to be

confronted with a sign of contradiction. But its good that they be forced to see one

from time to time.


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boats provided by his first disciples to cross the sea, though storms threatened to

capsize it at times, and go wherever the people who needed to hear him were. May

the Catholic blogs and social media apostolates here, be that little flotilla of boats

that brings the saving message of Christ even into the depths of the social internet.

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5 Conversations/Goals for Catholic Activism:

1. We need to have a national conversation about the responsibility to voteCatholic, and of the responsibility of Catholic politicians to act Catholic

2. We need to have a national conversation about the fact that being trulyCatholic means holding and believing everything the Church teaches with

authority we have to make it clear that cafeteria catholcisim is not

Catholicism its Protestantism

3. We need to have a national conversation about the fact that the Church is anuncompromising defender of life, and that Catholics provide concrete

support to women who are tempted to seek an abortion

4. We need to have a national conversation about the fact that the Church is notanti-gay. That it loves persons with homosexual inclinations so much that it

will not stand by as they ruin their lives and endanger their soul5. We need to have a national conversation about the importance of the family,

that the family is the fundamental building block of society and thatgovernment must protect and provide for the traditional family

Documents

Catholic Activism in the Age of the Social Internet