There Is this New Guy On-line Seeking to Make Friends…

He's 33, single, and a Capricorn. He has many interests including: drinking wine, volunteering care to the sick and poor, and leaving his footprints in the sand along the beach. His hometown is Nazareth. His favorite song is Joan Osbourne’s What if God was One of Us?

He seems like a nice guy. Is he someone the young people with whom you serve might be interested in be-friend-ing?

Young people are making these sorts of friendship choices every day on “social networking” pages such as MySpace, Facebook, and other web sites. They post their pictures, their music, and their thoughts on “blogs.”

What is a blog? A blog is a website where journal style entries are made and often displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news. For teens, however, most of their blogs function as personal online diaries. (I know- I have one at www.dscottmiller.com/blog.htm.)

There seems to be much clamor regarding the risks of blogs for young people. NBC Dateline regularly profiles their efforts To Catch a Predator. Taunting and preying on vulnerable classmates is changing from the playground and into the realm of cyber-bulleying.

What Can We Do?

As Catholic youth ministers, our first task is to work in partnership with the very same parents who provide young people with the technology and Internet access to go on-line. We should remind both parents and young people of the Cardinal Virtues and their relationship to Internet use.

• Prudence is the virtue that encourages practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it. Therefore, we are concerned for the protection of self and family, including the risks towards credit, viruses, and personal safety. Young people should be encouraged to use discretion in what is personally shared and to consider the consequences of public broadcast of opinion.
• Justice towards one another prompts one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good. Young people should be encouraged to remain respectful and take care to protect others on the Internet as well.
• Fortitude is the moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. Parents and young people need to check in with one another regularly regarding Internet use. Safety is better ensured if a young person is “surfing the net” within the thoroughfare of the family home and not locked behind bedroom doors. Young people need to remain skeptical regarding “anonymous friends.”
• Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. Despite a sense of anonymity on the Internet, young people need to take care to maintain modesty as well as a set of limits and boundaries regarding their own use of it.

What about Our Use?

As a youth minister, what should we be doing about our own use of MySpace? Again, prudence is demanded here. Blogs might serve as an effective vehicle to communicate with young people, keeping them up to date on future events and tapping into a young person’s cyber-relationships.

We should be temperate regarding young people’s disclosures on-line. At a youth retreat, would you willingly open a young person’s journal or diary…just because it was left out and open? If you are scanning the Internet for updates on your young people, it begs the question: Why aren’t you speaking with them personally instead of relating to them virtually?

Rethink the role that you are playing in the lives of the young people you serve. Please continue to be aware of the critical distinction between the role of the church’s youth ministry contact and the parent. As a parish or school leader, we should be serving parents who are the leaders of their own domestic church found within the family of the young people.

What about Jesus?

Back in the days of Walter Cronkite, we would watch the evening news to learn about the world outside our own local environs. Then, USA Today brought us “news that we could use” is brief, manageable snippets. On-line blogs have moved us into a world of “I am the news.”

The “I am the news” philosophy conflicts with the message of the single, 33-year-old Capricorn from Nazareth who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” The Internet offers many wonderful possibilities in assisting us with the responsibility to share the “Good News.” Our call to discipleship demands that we must work towards transforming the “MySpace” of our lives into “HisSpace.”

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