The Lack of Catholic Identity in Europe and Blogging for the Catholic Community

Part I On Catholics and the Media

Having traveled in Europe during the past year, I am struck again and again by the lack of Catholic identity among families. Obviously, there are exceptions, such as the families of children which attend the Latin Mass on Sunday in two locations where I have been in Ireland. But, the lack of Catholic identity is a hole in the spirit which seems to be filled with another identity, which is not even European.

It is as if Europeans do not want to be Europeans. The youth wear clothes which look like any styles popular in any large city in the States. The most common tee-shirt, and I am not kidding, which seems popular, besides those with band logos, is the Che Guevara tee-shirt. I wish I had a euro for every time I have seen a young man or woman with a Che shirt. I wonder if these young people have actually read his biography, which I have.

The lack of identity is not merely superficial. It reflects the death of the soul of Europe and, indeed, the national identity of many nations. Language is not the only mark of national identity. But, there is an insidious, slow, chipping away of the family, wherein customs, habits, consciousness of person-hood develop. One notices even in small towns the lack of identity-partly because of the EU regulations which allow all EU nationalities to go and live in other countries and work, creating a pan-European identity. This pan-European identity seems chic, but it has a downside. This identity is not based on the Catholic Faith.  Two young Catholic men-each from two different European countries, told me recently that they have no one with whom to discuss the Faith in their communities. They rely on the Internet Catholic connections and blogs, which seem to be more important than one realizes at first.

For those of us who grew up with Fulton J. Sheen, for example, using the media for an encouragement of our Faith is not a new phenomenon. Resources such as the Catholic Encyclopedia online and other such study guides, including the Vatican website and other websites with the Encyclicals and teachings of the Church provide great sources of information-solid and true.

To be an adult Catholic, one must study the Faith. Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman's famous quotation comes to mind: An ignorant Catholic is a Protestant.  Fulton J. Sheen repeated that truism. And, history shows us that the Catholic Church has always used the media of the day-letters, bulls, documents, etc. to pass on the Faith. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, for example, was widely published, as were pamphlets, such as St. Edmund Campion's tract on Catholicism- his "brag". Using the media of the day marks Catholicism. With the lack of Irish or Maltese identity, or Portuguese or Spanish, comes the lack of a Catholic identity. The Churches are full in Malta, Ireland and elsewhere, but the average Mass attender is older than I am, which is old.

The children from the Catholic schools do not attend daily Mass anywhere that I have seen, coming occasionally. This seems odd to me, as someone who grew up going to Catholic schools where daily Mass attendance was normal. In the States, I am familiar with many NAPCIS schools which have daily Mass, either joining the parish Mass, or having their own, if the schools are fortunate enough to have a chaplain.

The town where I am now literally is full of unemployed men in their twenties. They could be going to daily Mass, which would help them in many ways, I am sure. They lack the center of their being-their Catholic Faith, and the identity which would help them through life to become the person God created them to be.

Catholic media has become more important than ever. Catholics who want the Catholic identity watch Catholic television and such videos as The Vortex in places through-out the world. In my last blog, I had people in Indonesia and Australia, Russia, etc. reading about Catholic issues daily. This is true for most bloggers. The Internet at this moment in time is a key instrument for catechesis and evangelization.

The virtual Catholic community is an important resource for young people and the not-so-young. That we can share ideas and ideals gives many the identity and strength needed. Obviously, Catholic identity must be internalized and that is the job of the Catholic adult. But, until that happens, and perhaps even after that identity is solid and true, the Catholic virtual community remains essential.

Ten must-see web resources for Catholics

 osv.com

Thanks to these 10 ministries, a wealth of Catholic teaching, history, art, music and culture is a click away

By Mark Shea - OSV Newsweekly, 2/12/2012

When I was coming into the Church (back in 1987, when Pangaea was breaking up) one of the big challenges for somebody who wanted to know what the Church taught was simply finding material that made the faith intelligible to people who did not speak Catholicese.  

Sure there were things like conciliar documents and papal decrees, or histories, and books of theology layered in dust if you wanted to make the haj to some local Catholic school library and wander the stacks. But mostly what we got out here in the wilds of the Archdiocese of Seattle was what we were told by whichever warm body had gotten sucked into teaching RCIA that year. 

I learned, for instance that the, er, Augustinian sins of the flesh I had committed in college were mere “storms of youth” and that I should pay them no mind. I was pretty sure that these sins were still a no-no, so I concluded that in the effort to affirm me in my okayness, my teacher was, in fact, fudging on what the Church actually taught in order to accommodate me.  

I preferred knowing what the Church taught so I could make an informed decision. So together with my friend Sherry Weddell (of whom, more in a moment) we formed the Seattle Catholic Study group and proceeded to read and study our way into the Church along with some other like-minded evangelicals who found ourselves drawn to the universal Church, and yet strangely stymied by the local Church. Stymied how? Well, the usual: silly parish politics, teachers who were oddly hostile to the subject matter they taught, priests who told us that the book of Exodus was the equivalent of a Paul Bunyan story, bitter nuns who demanded to know why anybody in their right mind would want to be Catholic, orthodox teachers who could not for the life of them teach and who panicked when you asked them questions, and an archdiocese riven in pieces by all sorts of kooky controversies of which we understood little or nothing. 

Not surprisingly, our experience persuaded us that if we actually wanted to find out what the Church taught, we would have to do it ourselves since our teachers were so singularly reluctant, embarrassed and ashamed to reveal the content of the Faith. So we went in search of such resources as we could find.  

And, of course, in those pre-Scott Hahn days, there was the extremely helpful Peter Kreeft, whose prodigious output of books by a Thomist who spoke both Catholic and evangelical and who understood our questions was immensely helpful. Sherry and I even corresponded with him and got back specific help for which the both of us will be eternally grateful.  Certain things presented themselves, such as books — written by converts who spoke Evangelicalese — that addressed our burning questions about such matters as the authority of Scripture, justification, the Church’s historical black marks like the treatment of Jews, the sacraments, the Real Presence and the place of Mary. Dan O’Neill, a local convert and author of “The New Catholics,” as well as biographies of John Michael Talbot and Mother Angelica, was hugely helpful. Also Thomas Howard’s “Evangelical is Not Enough,” Alan Schreck’s “Catholic and Christian,” and Karl Keating’s “Catholicism and Fundamentalism” were useful, as well as John Henry Newman’s “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,” various works of G.K. Chesterton (such as “Orthodoxy,” “The Everlasting Man,” “St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox,” and “St. Francis of Assisi”) with the final invaluable addition of Jesuit Father John Hardon’s “Catholic Catechism.” 

Between these resources, we were able to get our questions answered and able to peacefully and honestly say, when the time came, “I believe all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims is revealed by God.” 

Online apostolates

That was in 1987. By 1998, when I was asked to speak at my parish, I was stunned to discover that the small pile of books which we had used to educate ourselves on our way into the Church had swollen to a vast number of resources that filled two large lunch tables full of apologetic and catechetical resources, with no end in sight. The lay apologetics and catechetics firestorm touched off by Karl Keating in the 1980s (when he walked out of his parish one day and found all the cars in the parking lot covered with pamphlets full of crude anti-Catholic propaganda and resolved to offer mimeographed replies) has continued unabated to this day.  

One Catholic layperson after another has taken up their apostolic vocation and borne witness to the faith in an ever-swelling tidal wave of information about the Faith via the new media, particularly the Internet, which now makes it possible for almost anybody to proclaim the Catholic faith as we are called to do—with cheap and easily available technology.  

Rather than laborious trips to the library to hunt down obscure texts, anybody who wishes can, with the push of a button, find almost any resource he needs to research not just Catholic teaching, but almost anything pertaining to it, or Catholic history, art, music, or culture. 

As a result, some very valuable and industrious Catholic ministries have appeared, courtesy of some enormously industrious and generous people who have poured thousands of man hours into sites which provide the world with a massive amount of information about the Faith, as well as links to still other sources in case you can’t find what you need on their sites. Let’s take a look at just 10 of them (knowing we are just scratching the surface). 

Mark Shea writes the Catholic and Enjoying blog atwww.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/ and is the author of “The Heart of Catholic Prayer: Opening the Our Father and the Hail Mary” (OSV, $12.95), to be released in March. 

DAVE ARMSTRONG

BIBLICAL EVIDENCE FOR CATHOLICISM

Another product of the curious wave of mid-1980s conversions to the Church (curious in that they all seem to have happened independently of one another without anybody other than the Holy Spirit being aware of all the other conversions taking place), Dave tells his story in the best-selling “Surprised by Truth” (Basilica Press, $13.99). Like many converts, Dave has been greatly influenced by that great (and unintentional) midwife to the Catholic faith, C.S. Lewis. Also greatly influenced by people like G.K. Chesterton and John Henry Newman, as well as Malcolm Muggeridge and Father John Hardon, Dave has gone on to be a prodigious writer and arguer about the Faith with countless people on the Web. His website offers a massive array of apologetics essays on everything under the sun (and over it). There is work on the sacraments, tradition (with replies to the great Protestant creation myth of sola scriptura, the Eucharist, conversations about the various scandals in the Church’s history, the Church’s relationship with non-Catholic and non-Christian religions, Romantic and Imaginative theology, patristics, ecumenism, salvation, saints (including the Blessed Virgin), radical traditionalism, Trinitarianism and Christology, the papacy, eschatology and a ton of other topics. St. Justin Martyr had two dialogues. Dave has 624 and counting. And the guy has written 24 e-books and maintains a blog in which he merrily argues for the Faith with a wide variety of folks from all manner of backgrounds. If you want to see a lay apostle at work in the modern agora that is the Internet, check him out!

FATHER ROBERT BARRON

WORD ON FIRE

Father Barron is arguably the hardest working man in the American Church. He is the Francis Cardinal George Professor of Faith and Culture at Mundelein Seminary near Chicago and also is the founder of Word On Fire. Word On Fire programs are broadcast regularly on WGN America, Relevant Radio, CatholicTV, EWTN, and the Word on Fire website which offers daily blogs, articles, commentaries, and over 10 years of weekly sermon podcasts. In 2010, Father Barron was the first priest to have a national show on a secular television network since the 1950s. As the creator and host of “Catholicism,” a groundbreaking 10-part documentary series and study program about the Catholic faith, he has given us what George Weigel calls “the most important media project in the history of the Catholic Church in America.” He is a passionate student of art, architecture, music and history, which he calls upon throughout his global travels in the making of the documentary. On the Web, perhaps the single coolest and most enjoyable gift Father Barron brings to anybody hungry to understand the intersection of pop culture and the Faith is the enormously popular Word on Fire YouTube channel, wherein Father Barron offers brilliantly insightful commentary on whatever happens to be in the news that day.

From a fantastic analysis of the theological underpinnings of the Coen Brothers’ “True Grit,” to a chat about the relationship of the schlock sci-fi film 2012 to Christian eschatology, to a sympathetic but ultimately devastating takedown of the latest “I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus” video sweeping the Web, Father Barron fearlessly, lucidly and with great charm evangelizes the Web, particularly with a view to those who know nothing about or are actively hostile to the Christian and Catholic tradition.

He is a joyous apostle for the beauty and truth of the Faith.

DAVID M. CHENEY

THE HIERARCHY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

How many times has this happened to you? You’re at a party and somebody turns to you and says, “Of course we all know who the archbishop of Kuala Lumpur is these days.” No longer will you have to stand there feeling foolish and ignorant. Because David Cheney has put together a truly massive website dedicated to nothing less than tracking the information on every single diocese in the world. Who’s bishop. Who’s retiring. What synods, consistories and other meetings are in the works. Historical details of each diocese. Bishops living and dead as far back as we can trace the bureaucratic records. Curia. Cardinals. Religious orders. We’re talking current and historical information about every single bishop and diocese on planet Earth. (By the way, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur is Murphy Nicholas Xavier Pakiam. He’s only the second archbishop since it only became an archdiocese on Dec. 18, 1972. But then you knew that.)

STEVEN GREYDANUS

DECENT FILMS

Steve Greydanus is a man who loves the movies. A film critic for the National Catholic Register and a regular contributor to Christianity Today, Steve also is a member of the Online Film Critics Society, co-hosts the TV show “Reel Faith” for NET TV. He has logged many hours on television and radio, has reviewed hundreds of films and devised a useful rating system that looks at the overall recommendability, artistic-entertainment value, moral-spiritual value, and age-appropriateness of each film.

This has proven to be a huge help to many people in discerning not only which films are worth spending money on, but when to bring the kids. In addition, his perceptive essays help Catholics squeeze all the juice out of films by making them more aware of the subtexts of the visuals, story, and acting so they can better grasp how the artists who create some of our best films are communicating their message.

Sometimes Steve will embark on various essays (all available on his site) in which he offers his insightful analyses (as, for instance, a recent piece in which he discusses the peculiar trend among a number of disparate filmmakers who deal with the breakdown of the home visually by literally destroying the houses of the characters who live in them). Steve is my go-to guy when I want to get the latest news on what’s in the theater or available on DVD.

KEVIN KNIGHT

NEW ADVENT

Kevin Knight is one of the driest, drollest and funniest people on the web. A citizen of the Mile High City of Denver, Kevin is a serious Catholic with a serious passion for making information about the faith available to a huge population of Catholics on the Web. Anybody who runs a blog and has received a link from Kevin knows the potential he has for crashing one’s server with a sudden influx of vast crowds of readers from his New Advent site. The look of the site is a curious combination of “The Drudge Report” (gobs of interesting news links on the front page about whatever interests Kevin in fields of religion, science, the arts, culture, politics or just plain News of the Weird), plus links to a valuable collection of some very impressive libraries of goodies he has amassed. Need to access a hyperlinked complete copy of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae? Kevin’s your man. Likewise, if you want to see the still extremely useful 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia? It’s all there, lovingly typed into html and hyperlinked by a team of devoted volunteers who put in thousands of man hours to make this resource available to the world.

In addition, you can find the Douay-Rheims Bible (with Challoner commentary), and a ton of patristic and ecclesial documents. You may love it so much that you find yourself volunteering to help type in more resources to help this dedicated servant of the Gospel.

ED PETERS

IN THE LIGHT OF THE LAW

  Ed Peters received his degree in (American common) law from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1982 and his doctoral degree in Roman Catholic canon law from The Catholic University of America in 1991.

Since 2005 he has held the Edmund Cardinal Szoka Chair at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.

In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI named him a referendarius — basically a canon law consultant — of the Church’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura.

He’s the author of a number of books, including three extremely helpful books on three different subjects almost nobody in the media understands: indulgences, excommunications and annulments.

Peters’ blog is the go-to place on the Web for all your informed canon law needs. He tackles everything from soup to nuts with the measure balance and sanity of somebody who has seen a wide variety of complicated, tricky, bizarre and even funny matters arise as the human parade marches through the Church doing all manner of things that are not According to the Rules.

That’s OK, because Peters recognizes that the law was made for man, not man for the law, and he therefore realizes that the function of canon law is to help us become more human, not be saved by law, rules and regulations.

If you are puzzling about a canonical issue in the news or in your life, check with him.

He’ll probably know what’s going on.

SCOTT HAHN

ST. PAUL CENTER FOR BIBLICAL THEOLOGY

The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology is a nonprofit research and educational institute that promotes life-transforming Scripture study in the Catholic tradition. The Center serves clergy and laity, students and scholars, with research and study tools — from books and publications to multimedia and online programming. Its goal is to be a teacher of teachers. It wants to raise up a new generation of priests who are fluent in the Bible and lay people who are biblically literate. For th center, this means more than helping people to know their way around the Bible. It means equipping them to enter into the heart of the living Word of God and to be transformed and renewed by this encounter. Accordingly, they read the Bible from the heart of the Church, in light of the Church’s Liturgy and living Tradition. Hahn has already had immense success in this, having mentored such fine scholars and teachers as Tim Gray and Ted Sri (two ornaments of the Church in Denver), as well as a phenomenally successful ministry as both a Scripture scholar at Franciscan University in Steubenville, and internationally as a speaker and teacher whose work goes out by written word, radio and TV globally.

His infectious love of Scripture and extremely perceptive commentaries have opened the Bible up to untold numbers of readers both Catholic and Protestant and led to both conversions of non-Catholics and deepening of faith for Catholics.

The St. Paul Center offers online studies of Scripture, audio resources, a vast and growing library of resources, commentary from Scott and from such noted Scripture scholars as Michael Barber and John Bergsma, patristics information from Mike Aquilina, and information on liturgy, prayer and Catholic spirituality.

STEPHEN K. RAY

DEFENDERS OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH

Steve is another human dynamo who, like Dave Armstrong, hails from Michigan. And he is a ball of fire. Recently, Steve sponsored a young man who was being confirmed. When the lad came to visit him, Steve greeted him in full Roman armor and, brandishing his sword, demanded to know if he was willing to suffer and die for his faith. That’s Steve all over, since he himself gives every indication that he would consider it an honor to be roasted on a griddle for the Lord Jesus. Raised as a Baptist, Steve had an encounter with the Holy Spirit that drew him closer and closer to the Catholic Church until, in the mid-1990s, he and his family all made the decisive choice to enter the Church. Since that time, he has dedicated himself to spreading the Catholic faith with all the considerable zeal he can muster. This has included not only making his epic “Footprints of God” video series (Ignatius) but also setting up the massive resource known as the Defenders of the Catholic Faith website. There, you will find a colossal array of resources including, not just Steve’s blog and a chat board, but book, video and CD recommendations as well as gobs of links to all sorts of other valuable sites (not to mention Steve’s own very helpful writings on such things as the papacy or his Scripture studies). As Garrison Keillor says of Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery, if you can’t find it at Steve’s site, you can probably get along without it.

FATHER JOHN ZUHLSDORF

WHAT DOES THE PRAYER REALLY SAY

The mission of Father Z’s blog is very plain: Slavishly accurate liturgical translations and frank commentary on Catholic issues. He delivers in spades, answering questions about all things liturgical for the benefit and delectation of his fiercely loyal readers. Although he’s not always everybody’s cup of tea in his personal views on politics and culture, he remains a very useful resource for those concerned with the fine points of liturgical practice both legit and whackadoodle. As the age of daft liturgical experimentation draws to a merciful close under good Pope Benedict, Father Z is a friend to those who have suffered under homilies about how Jesus was a racist (I endured one of them myself), or compelled to watch liturgies in which Sister Orbis Rotunda, replete with short-cropped iron grey hair and sensible shoes, graces us with a Fantasia “Dance of the Hours” interpretation of “And the Father will Dance,” or some genius decides to consecrate French bread as a sign of “solidarity with the people.” Father Z provides abundant clarity about the simplicities of “Say the black. Do the red” as well as helps people find resources for what to do about liturgical abuses, loopy ad hoc teaching, and sundry progressive dissenting nuttery.

SHERRY WEDDELL

THE CATHERINE OF SIENA INSTITUTE

Full disclosure: Sherry is godmum to our oldest son. She and the Shea clan go way back to about 1980, when we both lived in Seattle and neither of us dreamed of being Catholic. We were friends through the ’80s, found ourselves on the same journey into the Church, started that Seattle Catholic Study group I mentioned, and entered the Church at the same Mass. After this, her diligent zeal for the Faith led her to become interested in the Church’s teaching on the vocation and mission of the laity, which led her to begin exploring the Church’s theology of charisms (which are the tools God gives each baptized person to carry out the work he desires us to do). And this, in turn, led her to found, along with Dominican Father Michael Sweeney, the Catherine of Siena Institute, which is now busily conducting “Called and Gifted” and “Making Disciples” workshops all over the world and helping Catholics connect with the Church’s teaching on our vocations as laity, the charisms God has given all the baptized to fulfill those vocations, and the ways in which Catholics can grow as intentional disciples of Jesus Christ. The Catherine of Siena Institute site has a large library of documents which help the reader to root himself in the Church’s teaching about our work as laity in the New Evangelization, about our mission as apostles, and about the gifts God has given each baptized person carrying that mission out. In addition, Sherry maintains a blog in which she keeps her finger on the pulse of what is happening in the mission field, as well as keeps tabs on the Church as she helps Catholics grow toward a deeper understanding of our vocation and gifts as laypeople.

Vatican's Newest Web Offering Going Strong

Launched last June with the first ever papal tweet, the Vatican’s news.va portal is gaining traction. 

St. Francis de Sales is the patron saint of journalists and writers, and his Jan. 24 feast day is also the Church’s World Communications Day, marked annually with a special papal message (which this year focused on the importance of cultivating interior silence to be able to communicate effectively) and a press conference.
 
This year’s was complete with spumante, chocolates and Italian panettone cake, and a special Mass for journalists.
 
There were two big announcements: The Pontifical Council for Social Communications unveiled a more colorful, revamped website — pccsva.org — and the council’s president, Italian Archbishop Claudio Celli, touted the success of the Vatican’s news portal — news.va. 

The archbishop said the news site on average draws between 8,000 to 10,000 hits a day. Peak periods like Christmas saw 16,000 hits in one day, he said. People from some 180 countries are visiting the site with the United States topping the list: about 27 percent of all visitors are connecting from the United States, followed by Italy, Germany, Spain, Canada and Brazil.
 
The site is also relatively “sticky” with people remaining on the site about two minutes on average. About 53 percent of its traffic is made up of unique visitors while 47 percent are regulars, he said.
 
Something that was surprising, he said, was how much traffic was being generated by social networks. The majority of visitors — 65 percent — came to the site via Facebook.
 

6 Rules for Facebook

From Inside Catholic by Danielle Bean

The day my mother joined Facebook, I updated my status to read: "That loud crashing sound you just heard? That was worlds . . . colliding."

Imagine the noise, then, when my 16-year-old daughter created her page last month. Kateri is a responsible young lady, and yet still I felt the need to set some ground rules before allowing her the privilege of social networking.

It's not just teenagers who need Facebook rules. We all do. Here are some of mine.

1. Less is more.

This is tricky, because I love to know other people's details. I think it's encouraging (and a little bit hilarious) when a friend confides to Facebook that she was mortified to hear her toddler shout out a curse word when he spilled a cup of juice at his grandmother's house. 

Once upon a time, though, people used to be demure. That was a good thing. I don't need to know that the nice lady who sits near me at Mass is at Peak Day + 3 and her husband is making her crazy, and I don't need to know the number of bowel movements my kids' swimming teacher's cat has had this morning. If you are wondering whether any particular bit of information is "over-sharing," it probably is. We could all use a dose of good old-fashioned mystery.

2. Check your settings.

This is pretty basic, but the number of people who have no idea what the privacy settings are on their Facebook pages astonishes me. Even if you think you know what your settings are, make it a habit to check them frequently. One thing Facebook excels at is changing the rules when no one's looking. You might have missed the memo that now sets "Everyone Sees Everything, Even that Karaoke Moment from Your Nephew's Graduation Party" as the default.

3. Remember: It's forever.

Read entire article here

Youths facing 'Facebook Depression'

From The Christian Post 

Youths who spend a lot of time on social media sites are at risk of "Facebook depression," a group of doctors say.

Though the symptoms and the resulting harmful behavior may be similar to "offline depression," the American Academy of Pediatrics has proposed Facebook depression as a new phenomenon.

The AAP issued a new clinical report, “The Impact of Social Media Use on Children, Adolescents and Families,” published online on Monday, detailing both the negative and positive effects of social media use on youth and families.

The report points out that the number of preadolescents and adolescents using such sites as Facebook and MySpace has increased dramatically during the last five years.

Facebook currently has more than 500 million active users. According to ComScore, a firm that measures Internet traffic, the share of visitors to Facebook under 18 years of age increased over the past year to 11.1 percent.

A 2009 Common Sense Media poll revealed that 22 percent of teenagers log on to their favorite social media site more than 10 times a day.

Gwenn O’Keeffe, MD, FAAP, co-author of the clinical report, says social media, rather than face-to-face interaction, is the primary way some teens and tweens interact socially.

“A large part of this generation’s social and emotional development is occurring while on the Internet and on cell phones," she stated in the report.

"Facebook is where all the teens are hanging out now. It's their corner store," O'Keeffe illustrated, according to The Associated Press.

While the benefits of social media participation include staying connected with friends and family, making new friends, community engagement, and enhancement of creativity, the AAP report cautions that using the online sites becomes a risk to youths more often than most adults realize.

Among the potential harms are cyberbullying, social anxiety, severe isolation, and now what doctors are identifying as Facebook depression.

"Acceptance by and contact with peers is an important element of adolescent life. The intensity of the online world is thought to be a factor that may trigger depression in some adolescents," the report points out.

The pressure to feel accepted isn't just felt among teens either. Interestingly, research by Telstra released last month found that 18- to 30-year-olds use Facebook in ways to help them appear cooler.

Twenty-two percent said they use the Facebook Places "check-in" feature to look cool, 10 percent use the feature to fit in with all the cool people who are doing it, and 10 percent use it to make others jealous.

One-third of the respondents admitted to feeling jealous or left out when they see their friends check-in on Facebook Places.

Facebook offers other unique features that could make it particularly tough for kids trying to fit in.

According to O'Keeffe, the number of Facebook friends, status updates and photos of happy people are some of the factors that could contribute to depression.

It can be more painful than sitting alone in a school cafeteria, O’Keeffe said, as reported by AP.

For Rhett Smith, a therapist and part-time pastor to youth and families, the latest AAP report confirms what he and many others have been feeling.

"One of the glaring paradoxes in my use of technology/social media, is that it has both the ability to make me feel connected and intimate with others, while at the same time feeling isolated, alienated and lonely," he said in an earlier blog post.

"Has all the technology relationally disconnected us in a sense, replacing the processes (befriending, getting to know each other, sharing life, etc.), where instead we just value the end results (number of followers, blog traffic, etc.)?"

The AAP warns that youths who do suffer from Facebook depression could turn to risky Internet sites for help – sites that promote substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, or aggressive or self-destructive behaviors.

"Parents need to understand these technologies so they can relate to their children’s online world – and comfortably parent in that world," O'Keeffe advised.

Moreover, parents need to recognize the reality of an increasingly digital world that their children are growing up in.

"Look at childhood as it is today. Help really see them as today's kids, not try to force them into a mold of yesterday's kids," she added.

New Evangelization: Churches late to Facebook party?

From Get Religion by Terry Mattingly

A mere three years ago, Diana Davis published a hands-on book for church leaders entitled “Fresh Ideas For Women’s Ministry.”

When flipping through its pages, she said, one of the first things she notices is a missing word — Facebook. She needs to rewrite the whole book to cover this reality gap.

“That obvious, isn’t it? It’s so obvious that we ought to be using Facebook to tell more women about our Bible studies and prayer groups and retreats and things like that,” said Davis, who has been married to a Southern Baptist pastor and administrator for nearly four decades, working in Texas and Indiana.

This connection is certainly obvious in America’s megachurch subculture and the digital-media pros and market-research consultants who serve it. Davis, however, has focused most of her attention as a speaker and writer on churches that occupy corners in ordinary neighborhoods, not the giant sanctuaries that resemble shopping malls.

Lots of churches, she noted, don’t even have solid websites. Facebook? Isn’t it that computer thing all the teens use to waste time?

“Many small churches, or even our medium-sized churches, have nothing — nothing,” she said. “There are people who still do not realize that if you’re not online, or if you are not on Facebook, you do not exist for lots of people today. Your church simply does not exist.”

The disconnected leaders of these churches should start doing the math, she argued, in a Baptist Press essay offering advice to those who have remained unplugged from Facebook.

First, pastors should request “a show of hands to find out how many church members use Facebook,” she said. “The average Facebook user has 130 registered ‘friends,’ so if just 20 church members use Facebook, that’s potentially 2,600 people who could read posts about your church. One hundred members with Facebook could touch 13,000. … Convinced?”

Once they recognize the potential, religious leaders must learn how to handle life in the parallel universe of social networking. Here are some key rules drawn from work Davis has done with church leaders who have taken their knocks.

* It’s crucial to understand the differences between websites, which users enter on their own seeking information, and Facebook pages, which — through “friends” links — can send semi-invited messages into someone’s personal “News Feed.”

“With Facebook,” she explained, “you’re sending messages to your members, but you’re also sending messages to their friends and then, potentially, to their friends and on and on. So it’s more aggressive, in a way. You’re on offense, not defense.”

* Newcomers should proceed with caution in this casual, yet intense medium. Clergy, she said, “know they have to think before they speak. Now they’re learning that they have to think before they click. … For example, pastors are supposed to use the language well. But if you put something on Facebook that has two or three misspelled words in it people are going to think that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

* It’s important to keep messages short, positive and audience appropriate. Facebook, she said, “is a good place to send out a prayer request, but it’s not the place to share details of someone’s surgery. This is not the place to talk about the fine details of your church’s finances.”

* Know that even simple amateur videos can help. For example, senior adults are more likely to feel comfortable visiting an exercise class if they can watch a short video showing others taking part. It helps to show newcomers what your flock is doing.

* Social networks cannot replace the human touch of true human networks. Facebook posts cannot replace a covered-dish supper, but they can help bring more dishes and people through the church door.

For example, as soon as news reports began about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Davis said her own church rushed out a message urging members and their friends to attend a prayer event. Then volunteers sent the message to other churches and their small-group networks. In short, the invitation “went viral” at the local level.

The result: Instant prayer service.

“That message went all over the place,” she said. “We could have never done that by telephone — that fast, to that many people outside our church. People came from everywhere. …

“This is real. This is something that more churches just have to try.”