Welcome to Catholica – a cyber community of people seeking to foster a vigorous discussion of Catholicism for adults seeking to enrich their lives spiritually and socially.

Our prime objective in establishing this community is to enable people to find Jesus Christ in their lives and, more particularly, to find those very personal directions that God seeks to give each person through their relationship with Jesus. We are not a community that sees its prime focus as one of endeavouring to bolster the institutional Church or endeavouring to prove that we, or the institution, know all the rules, have all the answers, or are God's elect and favoured children. We see ourselves as a community of individuals seeking to provide mutual support to one another in that lifelong and often difficult journey we all share of becoming more noble, fulfilled and Christ-like individuals – individuals who are able to make the difficult social and moral choices in life that eventually lead to the fullest reunion with the Divine in the next life.

At the practical level our website has four principal ways in which it seeks to foster attainment of the prime objective above:

1. At the first level it seeks to encourage all people to ask questions and to reflect on the issues that affect our lives communally and as individuals. The heart of our community is the discussion forum where conversation, dialogue, debate takes place and where our sense of community and communio (i.e. sense of community derived from our common membership of the body of Christ) is formed.
2. At the second level it seeks to stimulate discussion and debate by publishing provocative articles and commentaries that stimulate critical thinking, reflection and personal and communal spiritual growth within a broad framework of "Catholic thought" as understood in a Classical understanding of that term - i.e. wide-ranging, unbounded thought seeking "the ultimate answers and ultimate truths" and not primarily seeking to demonstrate social conformity and allegiance to creeds and personal theologies as some emotive substitute for the ultimate truths which are to be found in the Divine alone.
3. At the third level it seeks to create a sense of Christian community through the social interaction between participants that is fostered by sharing our stories, humour, and the simple process of "getting to know one another". In this aspect it differs from a lot of other websites in that while we allow pseudonyms, we discourage anonymity as some façade which some people hide behind while sharing little of themselves but constantly attacking others or endeavouring to prove they are the elect and the rest of society are sinners, heathen, heretics, "cafeteria Catholics", "liberals" or whatever.

See also the Editor's post at: "The Social Standards in Catholica": Post#70744

This website and discussion forum is open to all people of good will and who accept the broad ethos of this endeavour as outlined in our welcome message above. We encourage vigorous and stimulating debate that challenges the thinking of other participants but discourage debate and discussion that crosses that not easily defined boundary where vigorous and stimulating debate descends into ad hominen attack (i.e. argument focusing on the individual rather than on his or her arguments). Defamation, slander and calumny against any individual will not be tolerated and messages that contain such will be removed from the discussion without further explanation.

Disclaimer:

1. The administrators of this website shall have the sole discretion as to whether or not the content of any comment submitted shall be accepted in part or full or altered or deleted from the Discussion Board.
2. To participate in this forum users need to register their name and email address with the administrator. Users may post under a pseudonym and are not required to disclose their identity or email address to other users or readers of the board. The name, email address and any other private information disclosed to the administrator is only used for the administration of the discussion forum and will not be passed on to other members of the community nor to third parties.
3. The administrators of this website reserve the right to refuse registration to any applicant without disclosing any reasons for their decision. The administrators also reserve the right to restrict or withdraw the registration of any registered user whose behaviour compromises the objectives or working of this discussion forum and community.
4. The fact that any comment submitted to the Discussion Forum of this website may be edited, altered, amended or deleted does not obligate the administrators of the website to inspect, review or in any way vet every or any comment submitted or be responsible for any such comment.
5. Vias Tuas Communications, its owners, proprietors, parents, subsidiaries and related entities, including successors, and their respective officers, directors, shareholders, employees and agents thereof, shall not accept liability, individually or severally, arising from any comment from any contributor submitted on the Discussion Forum of this Website.
6. By submitting any comment to the Discussion Forum of this website, the contributor acknowledges, accepts and agrees that he or she shall be solely liable for any comments made on the Discussion Forum of this website as a condition for submitting such a comment.
7. Further, the contributor indemnifies Vias Tuas Communications, its parents, subsidiary and related entities, including successors, and their respective officers, directors, shareholders, employees and agents, for any loss or damage, including all legal and associated costs of what ever nature incurred, sustained or suffered, arising from any such comment submitted by a contributor to the Discussion Forum of this website.
8. It is the responsibility of the contributor that the contributor's computer is virus free. While all reasonable care is taken, this website does not accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising in any way from the use of the Discussion Forum of this website.

A note on your legal liabilities and on the limited protection provided by pseudonyms:

See also this post on our forum regarding your own legal liabilities for what you write on Catholica and some pointers regarding the use of pseudonyms:
www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=entry&id=74973

Material on this site:

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