The Catholic Cyber Militiaman

Vatican observers did a double-take when they read Paragraph 146 of the final approved Youth Synod document.  While there’s plenty to be found in the document which will curl the hair of most traditional/orthodox Catholics, Paragraph 146 is a whopper in its own right.  It speaks to the need for creating “certification systems for Catholic websites, to counter the spread of fake news regarding the Church.”

Say what, now?

You mean something like the electro-magnetic web-based Internetty version of a Imprimatur or Nihil Obstat kind of thing for web content?

Sounds like a swell idea…what could possibly go wrong?

It’s one thing for the Church to put her seal of approval on Catholic publications advising readers that they’ll find nothing doctrinally offensive or heretical in a book or some such.  The Church should have been doing more of that…assuming, of course, that it would be the heretical or quasi-heretical stuff that would get the flashing red warning light associated with it.  These days, you’re probably more likely to get clotheslined by a Vatican theologian for actually supporting the Magisterium as it existed prior to this pontificate.

I think most of us can imagine what’s really behind the Synod’s report calling for ‘badges of approval’ for Catholic websites:  they want to suppress dissent.

Well, I don’t know many of my fellow Catholic internet dudes/dudettes who are thrilled with that idea.  It’s not hard to imagine that outfits like Church Militant, LifeSite News, the Lepanto Institute and The Remnant would be early targets of such a “certification process.”

Dear Youth Synod Document writers/ghost-writers/stooges, we have a message for you:

Read more about it here–>  https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/vatican-looks-to-censor-lay-catholics