The Catholic Herald was kind enough to give us permission to reprint John Wilkins's "Zapping Your Enemy," published in the February 11, 2011, edition of the paper (it's not available on the Herald's Web site). The full article appears below.

I wanted to suggest that you insert a needle into your skull and suck your own brain out. That was one Catholic bloggers response to one of the editors of a centrist general-interest American Catholic journal who had posted a criticism of vitriolic rhetoric coming from some sectors of the prolife movement. For good measure, the blogger added that on reflection such a brain operation would not be necessary as that seems to have been done previously.

That was par for the course, the editor concerned told me, and the journals website was suffering as a result. Several such bloggers had an answer to everyone, and were impeding the meaningful democratic dialogue that blogs should promote.

The tone of discussion between Catholics, particularly on the internet, seems to me to have deteriorated. Discussing Jesuss exhortation in St Johns Gospel: love one another, even as I have loved you... by this shall all know that you are my disciples, Fr Raymond Brown, the leading Catholic biblical exegete of his day, felt driven to protest. In his magisterial Introduction to the New Testament of 1996 Brown noted that Catholics before Vatican II in their prayers rarely mentioned nonChristians (or even non-Catholics) who suffered from disasters or political persecution. Now they did so earnestly. On the other hand, before that Council they rarely if ever attacked fellow Roman Catholics publicly, whereas afterwards they have done so both vociferously and publicly, as they have fought over liberal and conservative issues. How could their professed concern for others be persuasive, Brown asked, if they virtually hated one another?

Now Pope Benedict has begun to show an interest. The Pope tripped up badly because of Vatican ignorance of the internet when he lifted the excommunications of four Lefebvrist bishops without realising that one of them was a notorious Holocaust denier. Since then the Vatican has sought to update itself on all aspects of online communication.

In his recent message for World Communications Day: the Pope sought to indicate where to draw the line between vigorous disagreement and uncharitable abuse or slander (everyone has a right to their good name, Thomas Aquinas insisted, even if they are wrong). It depended, the Pope said, whether or not the internet was being used to connect people together in a form of sharing from which came dialogue, exchange, solidarity. He encouraged Catholics to take part. The public digital forum enabled an authentic search for personal encounters with others. But it could also lead to depersonalised one-sided interaction. He called for a Christian way of being present in the digital world that was honest and open, responsible and respectful.

The head of the Vaticans commission for social communications, Archbishop Claudio Celli, said it was certainly correct to see the Popes admonition as directed to some Catholic blogs, YouTube channels and sites and Facebook users. He revealed that his office was working on guidelines about style and behaviour of Catholics online. But will that stem the tide, if the merchants of vitriol enjoy it?

Throughout the blogosphere, secular and religious, the anonymity open to contributors has tempted some of them to post remarks they would never dare to make in a face-to-face meeting. The temptation to self-indulgence, in the Popes words, is high. From the beginning of a thought to the publication of it can take only a few minutes. A push of a button is all it needs to zap your opponents. Too often the aim is not dialogue, but victory by any means. What Pope Benedict is so concerned about is evangelisation. If some posts give the impression that the faithful virtually hate each other, what conclusions will impose themselves on those looking in?

The American novelist Anne Rice is one of those affected. Brought up a Catholic, she drifted away and married an atheist. At length she returned to the Church, and in her books proclaimed her regained faith. Last year, however, she declared on Facebook that while her allegiance to Christ had not wavered,she was severing herself from his followers. Today I quit being a Christian, she announced. Im out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being Christian or to being part of Christianity. Its simply impossible for me to belong to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious and deservedly infamous group. For 10 years, Ive tried. Ive failed. What is happening to us to give such an impression? True, the Catholic Church has always been a cockpit of fierce argument, and always will be. But it has also always been a big tent, knowing itself to be full of sinners who need above all Christs gift of forgiveness and grace, and that some who seem to be outside are within, and vice versa. It has refused the blandishments of those who would weed out the tares from among the corn so that the watchword would be purity. Hence the opposition of the then Archbishop of Paris to the Jansenist nuns at Port-Royal: They are as pure as angels, but proud as demons.

Bloggers who maintain that they have the true doctrine and consign to perdition all who differ from them claim to be upholding the banner of orthodoxy as its embattled self-appointed guardians. But St Augustine, hammer of the Donatists, might not sympathise, for he disowned the rigorists against whom he was contending. The clouds roll with thunder, he wrote, the House of the Lord shall be built throughout the earth, and these frogs sit in their marsh and croak: We are the only Christians!

Ihave a suggestion for Catholic bloggers. Every day, take a glance at chapter three of the Letter of James before you go online and post or tweet through the virtual space of the web, as the Pope puts it. If the saints warnings do not apply to you, good. But otherwise, think twice. In the human body, St James says, there is one small organ that can stain all the rest the tongue (with its extensions the computer, the tape recorder, the mobile phone, the microphone and the television camera). Every beast and bird can be tamed by humankind, the saint asserts, but not the tongue. It can be a restless evil, full of deadly poison, set on fire by hell. One moment it is blessing the Lord and Father, the next it is cursing men and women made in Gods image. St James chides his readers: among them, he says, this ought not to be so.