Slashdot Mirror
Church Turns To Facebook To Find Priests
crimeandpunishment writes "The Catholic church of France isn't looking for friends on Facebook, it's looking for priests. The church has turned to Facebook as part of a campaign to attract young people to the priesthood, in an effort to combat its drastically dwindling number of priests. It may be working. The Facebook page attracted more than 1,200 fans in one week."
Attracting young people to the priesthood, isn't that what they've been doing for years?
Priests looking to Facebook as part of a campain to attract young people.
Provide the winecoolers?
I thought AOL was supposed to be more popular with the pedobear crowd.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
That sounds like a good idea. We know there aren't any perverts on Facebook.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Unless you are prepared to explain why your religion probably has a higher (but less publicized) level of sexual abuse.
So, what are they going to do once every state has a law banning sex offenders from social networks?
Come on, guys, at least try to come up with something a little harder to shoot arrows at.
you really should add a Pedo Panic button as soon as possible!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Perhaps they should actively seek to inspire people rather than trying to protect and defend themselves. There may have been a time when their church was above and beyond criticism, but those days are long gone. They need to accept this fact and focus on the positive rather than the negative. Furthermore, they need to look within themselves and to blame themselves for the current public opinion of their church. (In other words, instead of blaming the victims for speaking out, blame the people who did the victimizing!)
Then, after all that, do good works... LOTS of good works. That used to work in the past. These days, one rarely hears much about the good works of the church...
It will largely take care of the pedophile problem and the dwindling number willing to be priests in one shot.
Priests marrying wasn't disallowed all throughout church history anyway, it was political nonsense to do away with questions of inheritance.
I say fuck religion, especially Christianity. ESPECIALLY when it's French Christians.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
pedos know the gravy train when they see it
Boyscouts,Nambla,MichaelJackson,GarryGlitter,Archdiocese of Dublin Accept Invitation Y/N?
1,200 fans in a week is amazingly low for facebook.
Some very stupid useless pages can get millions of fans in a week.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris Hanson.
Pourquoi n'avez-vous pas un siège de plus ici?
We're talking about a matter of doctrine here, not a matter of pragmatism. You're right that, from a pragmatic standpoint, it would largely just make more sense to allow priests to marry.
You're also right that the Roman Catholic church didn't always require priests to take the vow of celibacy. But, it became part of doctrine in the past, and now will be forever going forward.
The Church will stand by the position that you don't change doctrine because people don't like it. . . if someone wants to be a priest, then they need to conform to doctrine, not the other way around.
Why should the catholic church try to fix it self, when blaming others has worked so well.
Granted it may just cause disbelief in most if you blame it on the jews or homosexuality in some, but far more will believe it, especially in developing countries, the only place the church is still growing. And no I am not going to say that this proofs only non-educated people believe in god. That would not be nice. It would be the truth, but not nice.
Oh and remember, the mafia isn't real, it is a plot by communism to disrupt the west. Oh and the shroud, it is real. Never mind that nobody in the bible mentioned it. You think people would have noticed or not have bothered with the bloody shroud left on a decaying body. Mind you, there is a perfectly sensible reason why nobody at the time noticed it, IT DIDN'T FUCKING HAPPEN!
Denial, it is must be a wonderful place to live.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wait, I thought Facebook was nothing but a hangout for pedophil...Ohhhhhhh, I get it. Nevermind.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
In other words, the writing's on the wall, but the situation is celibate.
They're easy to find. They're at the churches.
Oh. They want to find new priests
and a fan is not a (potential) priest.
Something witty.
Sounds scaring!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Won't somebody think of the children?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
its not "become a fan" anymore its "like" get it right
epic sig..... ya i got nothing
Facebook fans are easier to collect than signatures for an online petition. Taking a week to get only 1200 people to click a button in support of the largest religion in the country is evidence that the campaign is NOT working, IMO
Dear Journalists,
There are lies, damn lies, statistics and now facebook group sizes. All are meaningless but facebook groups are exceedingly meaningless. Although facebook might be the latest internet craze please get off your ass and do some real journalism. Please never quote how many people are in a facebook group again. I really don't care how many idiots clicked a viral marketing button because they have nothing better to do then drool over facebook updates all day at their computer/phone. Then again, you are probably quoting facebook because you are one of these people. Please at least stop writing for mediums outside of facebook and make the world a better place.
Thanks,
Keith
I like this quote from Sam Harris... "I've read the books. God is not a moderate. There's no place in the books where God says, 'You know, when you get to the New World and you develop your three branches of government and you have a civil society, you can just jettison all the barbarism I recommended in the first books.'"
Why do people still believe in Christianity? It is 2010. Must we propagate this insanity any further?
Social networks are already banning sex offenders right? Why aren't they banning organizations that harbor sex offenders? Surely that is a far worse offense, and probably would be shameful enough on the organizations that they might do something about it.
My cousin is a 28 year old Catholic priest and has a podcast. From the sounds of it, his diocese is really enjoying the youthful exuberance he's bringing to the area. All of us were a little boggled about the path he chose, but it seems to be working out nicely for him.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
After so many scandals of the church.
I'm realy not proud of the religion, i'd rather would protect the innocent against any books of so called wisdom.
A religion works only on the personal level, and beyond that a few steps higher it becomes politics, scandals and greed for power.
On the small scale i do understand people need religion (for life and death situations) for social and emotional peace.
On a the big scale explain me why doesnt the top of all the main religions come together and settle their differences.
There would be much more peace, around in the world.
And no i dont feel empty because i lost big faith in it, i think its the 21 century; mankind has become smarter.
We know what stars are, we cannt proof to explain it all; but then why should we?
I have totaly no need to understand darkmatter gods, or alians;
I mean beeing normal these days is complex enough to me.
But somehow i'm able to pickout those people who are normal too, almost on sight.
I therefor rather believe in real people, people who sometimes are bright examples of living a good life.
But sometimes are people who make small mistakes, as long as they dont become dangerous > is that atheism to believe in people?
Why facebook? Why not somewhere more suited to finding a better selection of possible catholic priest candidates? Like 4chan for example?
This really falls in the So What List. The catholic church is looking for more priests whats new. So they are using Facebook as a tool. So what... A good for them.
Now this is just in bad taste for slashdot as it will only really be just a forum to make fun of problems that a religion is having.
This Ain't News for nerds, this isn't news for geeks, if you are not interested in joining the priesthood it doesn't even matter. You just wanted an other forum to make fun of catholics.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Not the schools, but the teacher unions do.
Last I checked teacher's unions don't have a lot of pull in the district attorney's office.
While false accusations are a real problem, I'm pretty sure I've never heard of a case of a teacher's union covering for a real sexual abuse case. Care to link to some actual proof for your assertion?
or is that a mis-spelling of Chat Roulette?
Church LF Priest. Need heals and good to go.
1200 fans in a week? Thats like nothing compared to well known groups.. American idle probably got like hundred of thousands the first week
I've never seen so much bigotted commentary in all my life. Slashdotters ought to be ashamed of themselves. I wonder would you be so quick to poke fun at Jews? It seems anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice. The way ye are going on, you'd think the great Utopia that is secular society (you know, the one that you slashdotters subscribe to and pay taxes towards) had never produced a paedophile or a cover-upping bureaucrat. Anyway, despite the bigotted commentary, I get the distinct feeling that there's also a lot of begrudgery towards the Catholic Church (an institution that is incredibly wealthy). A Church that brings too much attention to the failings of the modern society that you live in. Facebook is facilitating the Church to spread her message. No big deal. The message hasn't changed all that much - it's just the medium is slightly different. And it's obviously working: this year, the year of priests, vocations are up and are rising steadily. Some seminaries who haven't had students for over 10 years have students in their lecture halls once again.
I would refrain from pedophile jokes because frankly it is not funny.
Anything can be funny under the right circumstances. If you think otherwise you are taking life far too seriously.
The biggest threat to Christianity is not atheists. It is Christians.
I would have said it's logic but no one ever accused Christians of that...
(if you are tempted to mod this troll or flamebait see above)
1 Timothy 4:1-5:
1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, 3 men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; 5 for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.
Note how it says forbidding to marry is a teaching inspired my demons. I mean, wow, don't they read their own book?
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
So how have they set in up? Once some guy has tried to "Friend" more than 100 tween boys he's never met before, does the Catholic Church automatically send him a pre-approved application form for entry into the priesthood?
Credit card companies have something like that set up for people with bad credit, so it seems like a good way for the church to save time it might waste rejecting all the women and married men who might want to be priests.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
It's NOT doctrine.
If someone wants to be a priest, bishop or other "top leader of a church" I suggest they look at this first:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy+3&version=NIV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%203&version=NKJV
http://bible.cc/1_timothy/3-2.htm
The requirements there for Bishops and Deacons don't mention celibacy anywhere. In fact they do even mention "husband of but one wife".
So there's above reproach, husband of but one wife, temperate, self controlled, good reputation with outsiders, etc.
So practicing polygamists/adulterers/fornicators/pedophiles/homosexuals do not meet that standard. Nor do drunkards.
You might ask why not practicing homosexuals? Because honestly if you're a practicing homosexual you would not meet the "above reproach", "blameless" and "good reputation with outsiders" requirement.
Like it or not, but It is a fact that a practicing homosexual is still not "above reproach" in the real world.
There are all sorts of outsiders you would deal with as an official representative of the church. Not meeting these requirements would reduce your effectiveness. You would be a blunt knife.
How about non-practicing homosexuals? IMO, there isn't such a vast difference to being faithful to one wife and being faithfully celibate. If you feel it's such a huge difference and you can't stay celibate, then too bad you don't meet the "self controlled" requirement.
BUT don't forget you can always serve in other ways.
There are plenty of good works still to be done, why do you need to be a priest, bishop, deacon or whatever to do it? What's your motive really?
I'm not a homosexual, but I certainly don't meet those high standards either.
More seriously - dear Catholic church: maybe if you're having trouble with recruiting, it might be a good idea to look at your medieval personnel policies? You know, like maybe letting priests get married, letting women in, etc, etc. Might cut down on the pervert problem too. I'm just sayin'.
While they're changing doctrine, how about female priests? That could potentially increase their numbers by 50%. Sometimes change is forced on the powers that be. Galileo springs to mind. They didn't like the idea of a Helio-Centric universe, but once science got it figured out, they had little choice but to change. Adapt or die also comes to mind.
... is that not all Catholic priests have to be celibate. If, say, you're a married Episcopal priest, and you convert to become a Catholic priest, well, obviously you get to keep your wife. Also, the Catholic church is made up of a couple of different "rites" - the Roman rite is most familiar, but there are various others. And in some of the others, yeah, priests can be married too. There is literally nothing to this insistence on celibacy for (some) priests beyond "we've always done it this way". And that's not even true.
Allowing women to become priests and allowing priests to marry is not a solution to reinvigorate the Church or gain greater numbers of priests. Sure, there is considerable amount of social pressure to conform to these demands, but please note that many mainstream Protestant churches have taken exactly these measures... and not only are their numbers of ministers not increasing, but they're decreasing again, also!
The problem with ministerial life is that it's a life of giving, and not a life of receiving. In a society where everyone wants to be "Paris Hilton", there's little incentive to aspire to be Mother Teresa...
Check the statistics, and then please give up this old, tired argument for female or married priests...!
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
Confirm or Ignore?
But he may still try to Poke you..
We've been recruiting priests, bishops, popes, hell popes, anti-popes, pope-esses, Doktors, cardinals, ordinals, and rabis via the Internet for nearly 20 years. No mandatory molestation, just $30 for ordainment (Eternal Salvation or Triple Your Money Back!) and the Divine Excuse! It is nice to see organized religion copying US!
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
Some years back, my cousin converted to Catholicism and went somewhat fanatical. In short order, he entered seminary to train to be a priest. For those who are not familiar with the process, Catholic seminary entails about as much time and effort as an undergraduate degree followed by a graduate degree, with emphasis on theology, philosophy, and some psychology. As far as a vocation is concerned, it more or less qualifies you to be a Catholic priest, and not much else. In essence, you are putting all of your eggs in one basket, as the opportunity cost of Catholic seminary is an equivalent degree from a secular institution. You end up specialized for employment by a single employer.
After years of effort (and enthusiastic blog posts), when he was just a few months away from his ordination, my cousin was suddenly cut off from the program. The exact circumstances around the event are still largely a mystery to the extended family, but one thing that we do know is that he really and honestly desired to become a Catholic priest. Now he is in limbo (excuse the pun), having just put in as much effort as he would have put in for a full undergraduate degree and a graduate degree at a secular institution. As far as I can determine, he now has no real prospects for employment outside the Catholic priesthood.
Perhaps he can start on another graduate degree from scratch at this point, but he is already well into his 30's and has thrown away years of his life pursuing something that some church bureaucrat has capriciously yanked out from under his feet. At this point, qualifying yourself for the Catholic priesthood seems to me like a tremendously risky way to pursue a career.
Allowing women to become priests and allowing priests to marry is not a solution to reinvigorate the Church or gain greater numbers of priests. Sure, there is considerable amount of social pressure to conform to these demands, but please note that many mainstream Protestant churches have taken exactly these measures... and not only are their numbers of ministers not increasing, but they're decreasing again, also!
Depends on the sect. There are some incredibly successful protestant churches right now.
The problem with ministerial life is that it's a life of giving, and not a life of receiving. In a society where everyone wants to be "Paris Hilton", there's little incentive to aspire to be Mother Teresa
I don't buy it, and I never have. There is not something morally bankrupt about modern culture that did not exist previously. The vast, vast majority of people have no desire to be Paris Hilton.
And I would even say on a religious level, Christian groups are a lot more "giving" nowadays than they tended to be in previous decades, where Christianity was frequently simply a label for an intolerant right-wing ideology; the modern evangelical movement is a lot more focused on actual good works than the fundamentalists of the 20th century.
The real reason atheists (as well as most religons) have fewer incidents is that the practitioners of those things have no powerful centralized quasi-government-like thing to protect them from consequences.
Imagine you were a pedophile. Wouldn't you want to get a job as a catholic priest, so that you would have a large organization to protect your interests? NAMBLA can't do that for you -- lack of power. A democratic institution (most modern governments) can't do that for you -- lack of will. The church has what you need.
Have gnu, will travel.
I told ya so! pop music is to music, like Facebook is to 4chan. Not better. Just more popular and a lot more full of being molded into a predefined set of the crowd’s social conditioned views of how they think things are.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
So this joke isn't even paedophilia-related
I never imagined that NAMBLAs membership was that large.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Reading the comments, one must be dreaming.... Moral statements, Advices and sarcasms on sexuality or spirituality?... Since when the world of nerds is a reference for this subjects? True, Geek are well known for their clean and healthy sexual behaviour. Guys, focus on the last CPU technology and the new events on the life of you own GPL God, Stallman, rather than commenting stupidly on the catholic church that clearly you do not know but through the myopy of the current media amalgamating 1.2 billion people to a few deviants.
but more power to the Church.
But please don't let them advert on Slashdot.
Moving from mom's basement to the rectory may not be good idea for either party.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I realize that this is slightly off-topic, but here's some food for thought concerning evolution in the Catholic and Jewish religions:
Consider what would happen (centuries or millennia ago) if you were a poor but very intelligent male child in Europe:
Depending on the religion of your family, you would probably come to attention of the local priest or rabbi.
If your family was Catholic you might be allowed to enter the priesthood, learn to read and write, and given initiative and some luck, you could rise through the ranks of the church hierarchy. Given you stay in the church it is unlikely that you would produce children.
If your family was Jewish, you might be tutored by the local rabbi, learn to read and write, and given initiative and some luck, you would likely marry someone from an educated and perhaps well to do family. It is likely that your children would get a head start in life, as compared to yourself.
Now consider what this difference means over thousands of years of evolution. The Catholics are removing intelligent people from the gene pool and the Jews are giving them a breeding advantage.
The Catholic religion has existed for over 2000 years, and the Jewish religion for much longer. This is may be enough time to produce measurable results. Think about the studies of the of the Ashkenazi Jewish community, which show a greater than 100 average IQ.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
The Facebook page attracted more than 1,200 fans in one week.
So they're several orders of magnitude behind the fanbase for "My Sister Said She'd Name Her Baby Megatron If I Got One Million Fans." If 1,200 is the best the Catholic Church can do in a week, they might want to consider going ahead and putting up the cathedrals for sale on eBay.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
The true believers won't touch the "Church" with a ten foot pole. More and more of the believing type are learning that worshipping sun staves is idolatry, that the accepted calender is pagan and the moon and lunar months are to be used for determining YHWH's "appointed times", that they should be worshipping YHWH and not some lord or god that could be the alias of something else, that many bibles are tainted (YHWH's name removed and replaced with lord or god, the bit about fasting and prayer to cast out demons is left out of many bibles, etc.), etc.
Are you really suggesting that striving to "inspire people" rather than direct, sometimes brutal "defensive" (or really offensive...) actions are in some way old fashioned for religions, traditional?
Really?! O_o
One that hath name thou can not otter
Hmm. Here in the U.S., its often a big debate. You and I know the founding fathers were not theists and we know specifically what the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment says...and what Article VI, Section 3 says about religious tests for public office. However, the bible-thumpers still insist the U.S. is a Christian nation founded on Christian principals. They succeeded in having "E Pluribus Unum " changed to "In God We Trust" on all our money and they managed to slip "Under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance. We had a recent VP candidate in 2008 who believed it was "God's will" that she was nominated Republican VP candidate...That reminds me of the Middle Ages "Divine Right of Kings" philosophy imposed by monarchs on their subjects. Also, I believe GW Bush made a similar statement about his ascendancy to the throne...er, I mean presidency. Of course, there's also the Pat Robertsons and others of the world who try to extend the power of religion to politics. I wish I could say the U.S. is truly secular.
If the priest was married before becoming a priest he is not required to take a vow of celibacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priesthood_%28Catholic_Church%29#After_the_Great_Schism
> sex... "sure beats the hell out of a ham sandwich, doesn't it?"
The Pope visits a convent and, after meeting the nuns, is about to leave.
He raises his hand in the normal way to give the sign of blessing, at the same time saying, "I vissh yor all a'penis."
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
..."Abstinence makes the church grow fondlers!""
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I mean look:
- faith in the belief that a certain prescribed ritual will result in a specific, predictable outcome? If that doesn't describe coding, I don't know what does.
- ability to spend their entire lives without sex, or really female companionship of any kind, except for a worshipful adulation of an image (think geeks and a picture of Megan Fox)
- ability to endlessly pontificate (see what I did there?)
Hell, all they have to do is say "priests get to live in their mom's basement" and the slashvertisment practically writes itself.
-Styopa
and not only are their numbers of ministers not increasing, but they're decreasing again, also!
Depends on the sect. There are some incredibly successful protestant churches right now.
Yes, there are successful churches, but that's a different topic -- we're talking about increases in numbers of ordained ministers. Not part-time workers: full-time, degreed professionals for whom their primary career is church ministry, at the parish level. Those numbers are declining.
I don't buy it, and I never have. There is not something morally bankrupt about modern culture that did not exist previously.
The problem isn't "moral bankruptcy", it's affluence. In the U.S., and the West, generally, more people live in middle-to-upperclass life situations, and have the expectation of continued affluence in their careers. It's this set of expectations that hinders the willingness to answer a call to ministry.
The vast, vast majority of people have no desire to be Paris Hilton.
Not according to recent polls of teenaged students in the U.S.! As they age, they abandon such superficial role models; however, the goals and ideals that these role models espouse tend to continue to be held dear...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
This is what your post sounds like to an atheist:
Of course you, a great beacon of not playing Pokemon, know what's best for the Pokemon Fan Club. ROFL. Maybe you should enroll in your local Pokemon Training Academy, study for seven years, do a PhD in Pokemon Biology in Tokyo and then publish your opinions and see how well they are received. I'll bet you'd fall flat on your face on the first hurdle and the whole stadium will be laughing at you. Stick to the keyboard heroics my friend.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Consider: In olden times, like in the 1960s, if you needed advice about marriage, family, health care, old age, and death, you spoke to your local representative of organized religion for advice and consent.
The theory was that it provided an accredited personal access to common cultural knowledge garnered across generations as to how to live life.
Today, that task is fulfilled by smart phones, WebMD.com, bloggers, AARP.org, and web memorials posted in cyberspace.
So, in a way, it is sign of the times that the Catholic Church in France is using Facebook to recruit persons to fill vacant positions that have been disintermediated by the Internet. In a way, it is a chance to select humans for a job no longer performed by humans because of the cost efficiencies of the Internet.
In another way, it is a form of functional redundancy that may some day be required should the Internet vanish through technological disaster or political hazard. In this latter sense, the keepers of organized religion are maintaining a social function as a back-up mechanism for maintaining social order should the Internet cease to operate.
Another example of similar human organizations rapidly being disintermediated can be found in libraries and schools.
In the face of technology, the old ways are kept polished and practiced by dedicated individuals in the event of that one rainy day when technology fails to renew itself in its rapid race towards consumer obsolescence.
When Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Point is reached - and biological humans are disintermediated - can we expect organized religion to provide android priests to avoid "temptations of the flesh"?
Q: Will Android Priests dream of Electric Angels??
Inquiring minds want to know ..
DarkStarZumaBeachSurfinApocalypseWow
To... FaceBible?
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
The Roman church would find more willing perverts^W candidates on chatroulette...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Wait, priests molest young boys because they can't get married ? What a nonsense, they could easily find some woman in the congregation to fornicate with, not kids necessary. This is not about marriage, it's about a sickness called pedophilia, which, I must say, 90% of the affected priests with suck sickness are gays.
They'd have better luck if they used 4chan and sweetened the deal with a stash of CP.
Wouldn't "The writing's on the door" be more appropriate?
.
I could do the priest thing, you know, I like reading old books, giving inspirational speeches, choirs are cool... But I also like making love to my wife. The celibacy thing is a real deal breaker for me.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool." --Mark Twain
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
"The Facebook page attracted more than 1,200 fans in one week."
The bad news is that they were all registered sex offenders....