Today I would like to address why we do not solely publish articles by Catholics on our Restoration Reader. As the Director of Communications and manager of the Restoration Reader, I believe it is important to address this so you are fully confident in our beliefs in promoting Catholic doctrine and truth, even though we may promote content by non-Catholics from time-to-time.
Firstly, I would like to point out that our Restoration Reader serves a different purpose to our podcasts and videos. Unlike these two forms of content which are clearly our own productions and feature true Catholics and clergy, Restoration Reader sets to promote truth and/or views and arguments that are in congruence with Catholicism inasmuch as they agree with the Church’s teaching or they discuss subjects that the Church is indifferent to (such as an article recommending a method of becoming more productive or a recipe for a cake). It is also clear Restoration Reader promotes outside content.
With this in mind, I would like to pose a scenario where a Catholic manages a newspaper discussing a variety of subjects. If an atheist were to write a column about theft and how it is evil, would it be acceptable for this newspaper to publish this? Of course it would. Because in the eyes of God, theft is evil. Therefore, the content is true and agrees with the Catholic Church.
And what if a Baptist mathematician discovered a mathematical formula? Would it be acceptable for the Catholic newspaper to publish this formula? Obviously, it would be okay! Because mathematics, in and of itself, is irrelevant to any of the Church’s teachings. And if the formula is correct within the laws of mathematics, then it is truth.
It is also important to keep in mind that due to the internet and the nature of how Restoration Reader works, it is very easy for readers to investigate where the author of a particular articles stands in his/her beliefs. Because of this, you can think, “hey, informative article! Let’s click on the author. Oh, she seems to be a Protestant so I should be aware that not all of her articles may be true!”
Clearly, as a program that promotes outside content, Restoration Reader is allowed by the Church to promote content, provided it is true in the eyes of the Church or is indifferent to them (such as a prediction on who will be elected as next president of the United States), even if it is by a non-Catholic.
As for our social media methods, we tag the Twitter handles of authors (should they have them) for a few reasons:
- It is polite to let an author know where his/her articles are being promoted.
- It can result in the author reading our Restoration Reader, and hopefully finding out and accepting the truth and saving his/her soul!
- It can result in the author’s Twitter followers finding our content and, as a result, perhaps finding out the truth and saving their souls!
I would like to conclude this message by saying that in a more Catholic world, I would be better equipped to promote content solely written by true Catholics. In fact, this would be fantastic.
However, in today’s world, this isn’t possible to achieve the goals of the Restoration Reader. That is: to promote content to assist you, myself, and all readers to constantly improve in becoming better Catholics in every aspect of our lives.
That being said, this makes for a great challenge where I do the best with what I can find to benefit our readers spiritually in a world that is spiritually dry.
Thank you. To all our readers. Especially our members. Because of you, we are able to do what we do in order to help souls find the truth… for that is our purpose!
