Visitors Welcome
All questions are welcome here, as long as they are sincerely asked. If you are here to debate Catholic doctrine or to tell us why we're wrong, go elsewhere. Our reason for existence is to answer sincere questions from those seeking information about the Catholic faith. If you cannot seek information with an open mind and accept honest answers, then you belong somewhere else. It is not necessary that you are considering joining our faith, but it is necessary that you are honestly and sincerely seeking information about the Catholic Church and are willing to discuss it in a friendly tone. Flames are not allowed. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. We will maintain a Christian attitude at all times. It is not our intention to stifle honest discussion at any time, but all discussions must be kept to the question at hand, not to personal attacks on the person posting the message or attacks against the Catholic Church.
Please don't be offended if your messages are moved into a different area. This is done for organizational purposes, and a link to the moved thread will remain for awhile. One of our concerns is to build a forum that will serve as a resource for visitors for years to come. This is best done when the message is first posted.
And please don't be offended if we ask you to post follow-up questions that have strayed from the original topic in a different area. Again, the reason is organization. When absolutely necessary we may have to edit your message for technical reasons, or to repost follow-up questions in their proper areas. This will be avoided whenever possible, but sometimes it may be necessary. Every effort will be made to keep the original intent of your message intact. Please inform a moderator if you feel that it has been unjustly changed.
References to commercial web sites are acceptable if they are germane to the discussion, but posts purely to advertise commercial sites are not. Users who post commercial messages without active participation in the forum are subject to removal from the system and having their email address and/or IP address blocked. Automated registrations are not permitted and will be summarily deleted. User registrations from known spammers will be blocked. Any user who feels he or she has been blocked improperly may request reinstatement in a special forum dedicated to that purpose.
Purpose of the Forum We are here to answer questions about Catholic dogma, doctrine, teaching, and practices. We are not here to debate them. We answer questions; we do not argue about the answers. Certainly if someone has stated something incorrectly a correction should be posted, but it should be taken to private messages first and the original poster should post the correction. If it does have to go public, do it with charity. If necessary, write to a moderator and let us handle it. If your problem is with me, then write to one of the other moderators.
In the Protestant world, when someone disagrees, they find another church. That is not an option for a Catholic. One of the attractive things about the Catholic Church to many Protestants is the unity we offer. When someone shows up here and asks a question and we start arguing about the answer, they feel like they're right back where they started, except with no option to "church hop."
Before you post a message, especially if you have already joined the Catholic Church, think how it will be taken by someone who has little or no knowledge of the Catholic faith except what he's read in Chick tracts or similar anti-Catholic propaganda. Is your message leading them toward the Church, or away from it?
Whether the topic is blessings at mass or the use of condoms or whether we should pray the rosary or kneel before idols, we will do our best to answer all messages accurately, compassionately, and charitably. Personal testimonies are always welcomed.
We are not qualified to judge the sinfulness of any act as we cannot tell the state of a person's mind. We are not God. Also, we are not ordained to sit in place of Christ in the confessional. We may judge an act as inherently evil, but we cannot say in a particular case whether the conditions required for the commission of a mortal sin have been met.
We are here as ministers of God's Word as expressed most fully in the Catholic Church through Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and Magisterium. We are not here to denigrate other faiths, but by necessity we must sometimes question their teachings. We will also honor the good work that they do and the sincere faith of most of their adherents.
If in doubt, ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?" If you follow his example, your post will be welcomed here.
Reposting Copyrighted Information
It is the policy of the CHN forums not to permit the reposting of copyrighted material without permission. The purpose of this policy is to protect the Coming Home Network and the administrators, moderators, and users of this forum from possible legal action. In addition, the fair and appropriate use of material from other sources is moral and proper, as befitting a Catholic Christian web site.
Most published material including anything posted on other web sites or in magazines, newspapers, or books, is covered by copyright. It is illegal to repost copyrighted information outside of the stated permissions of the copyright holder. It is the obligation of the person wishing to reproduce copyrighted material to determine whether any use falls within copyright protection.
Some sources permit use of their copyrighted material. It is legal to use their information as long as it is attributed. Such attribution should include an exact web site, the exact name of the publication including the full URL; the issue and page number of a magazine; or the title and page number of a book.
If permission is not granted, copying is governed by what is called fair use. The U. S. Copyright Office has an explanation of fair use on their web site. In order to legally post an article from an outside source on CHN under the fair use exception, the article may be paraphrased with brief excerpts quoted, and a full link to the original source article if on a web site, or the publication information if a printed source. The entire article may not be quoted, even with attribution, unless specific permission has been given to repost. The Copyright Office cites the following examples which have been upheld by courts under fair use:
- quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment;
- quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations
- use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied
- summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report
- reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy
- reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson
- reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports
- incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.
Numbers 1, 2, 4, or 6 could apply at CHN. Note that only the reproductions of "small portions" of the work are covered; quoting the entire article does not fall under fair use. The remainder of the article may be summarized in the poster's own words.
Users who have been granted permission to repost articles on CHN must include an explanatory phrase, such as "Permission to repost granted" or "Reposted with permission". We reserve the right to seek confirmation that a user has permission to repost. This is not required for public domain material or for articles placed in the public domain, such as press releases. Please note that although an original writing may be in the public domain, a translation may still be copyrighted.
To post any article without attribution is plagiarism, which is not allowed. It is not only illegal but also immoral since it is stealing the work of another author. Extensive quotes from known sources must always be attributed. Otherwise, the quotes and/or the messages containing them risk deletion.
Users who post messages that violate the CHN policy regarding copyrighted material will be asked to correct the situation. If it is not corrected, the message may be deleted without further notice. Repeated violations of this policy may result in the user being banned from the forum.
Violations Any violations of the Forum Guidelines may cause the user to be placed on probation. A special forum is available to request guidance on proper forum use.
We reserve the right to purge registrants who have not activated their accounts within 48 hours, and any users who have not posted a message within seven days of activation. This is occasionally necessary to purge the user base of automated registrations by spammers. Guests have full access to read all forum areas so no functionality is lost by those who choose not to post. Last edited on Tue Apr 17th, 2007 11:46 pm by
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