Reply #9: well..

[Princess Turandot]

I think we need to attract more DU Catholics, which is not happening now.

To achieve that, I think the mission statement should include something about frank discussion of Church policies, not something that pretty much warns one away from that topic. It should also include something about the discussion of Catholic views on social policies influenced by politics which does not appear in the mission statement at all. Whether or not those topics can be discussed elsewhere on DU, the point I thought was to make this a place where those topics could be discussed & debated by adults in civil discourse, without insults & flames from the anti-religious but as importantly, also not in lock step with the Vatican. There are lots of websites other than DU where people can extol the 'right-to-life' values and parrot church teachings on every aspect of life. I think that liberal Catholics, American 'menu' Catholics and hell, even 'lapsed' Catholics who still have a interest in the Church should be welcome here. And that 'welcome' should not consist solely of dogmatic response to civil questions or comments.

I'm not quite sure why you are worried abt becoming a 'me-too' forum about progressive religious values, since your original post was about spreading the word abt Catholic liberal social values. We are not in danger of becoming an identical group: Catholics have a very different self-identity than Protestants.

It seems to me that one way to help spread the word is to get more DU Catholics interested in posting here, beyond the dozen or so
who at most do right now. Right now, the group sends off vibes which are not particularly progressive. The reason that I suggested staying away from the topic of abortion at least is that there doesn't seem to be any dialogue on that topic here at all, but rather only statements reiterating the Church's position that abortion is murder. As long as that sits glaringly front & center here, you will not attract pro-choice DU Catholics whom I suspect are the majority of posters on DU who have any Catholic identity.

And I respectfully remain convinced that the word 'Orthodox' is a minefield which is not at all balanced by warm feelings of inclusivity towards the Eastern Orthodox, not that it's managing to attract any as far as I can tell. It's secular meaning is too loaded on a political board and more people are familiar with the secular meaning.

This group is not growing, which I would hope would be our goal. So either there are virtually no Catholics on DU or the status quo speaks for itself.