The internet is one of many modern means of social communication. Like any means of communication, it can be used for good or for evil. That the internet can be used for good is abundantly clear: from its use by the Pope and the Holy See, as well as by faithful Bishops, priests, deacons, and religious throughout the world. However, the internet can also be used in a manner that is gravely immoral. This point, too, is very clear: from its use in pornography, in hate, racism, terrorism, and in order to cheat, steal, defraud, extort, and commit a wide range of serious crimes.

But this post is specifically on the subject of the misuse of anonymity online in a way that harms the Church, the faithful, and the spread of the true Gospel. There is a particular problem online today regarding the spread of false teachings under the guise of Catholic teaching or claimed private revelation.

The internet allows false visionaries to quickly spread their false claims of private revelation around the world. Many of these messages may well be from fallen angels, as they contain grave heresies and various inducements to reject the Church and the Pope. Unfortunately, many of these false visionaries use the anonymity offered by the internet to present their false private revelations while hiding their identity. It then becomes difficult to complain to the Bishop of that visionary. And a visionary whose life has been, or still is, very sinful, can pretend to be very holy by means of this anonymity.

Another problem, which is perhaps still worse, are the innumerable online commentators, mostly anonymous, who attack the teachings of the Catholic Church, and the Church Herself, with a malice that is sometimes cleverly disguised, and other times open and shameless. Most recently, this type of attack has found a home at #AskPontifex, a thread on Twitter, which was intended to be used to offer questions to the Pope for him to answer from his Twitter account (@Pontifex). Instead, many persons are expressing malice, hatred, derision, and blasphemy toward the Pope and the Church. Many of these persons are anonymous. They don’t want their family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors to know that they openly express hatred for the Pope and the Church.

But they don’t care that God sees who they are and what they do. Sacred Scripture has a teaching on this point: the thief has a greater guilt than the robber. For the robber commits his crime openly, not fearing God or man. But the thief commits his crime in a hidden manner, fearing man but not God. Thus, the act of the thief displays a greater disorder. The greater the moral disorder, the greater the sin. So committing grave sins online, under cover of anonymity, with no fear of God, includes the particular disorder of fearing man, but not God.

But most of the above commentators are easily recognized in their malice by their open attacks on the Faith. What is even more harmful to the Church are those persons who use the anonymity of the internet to teach doctrinal errors with the claim that these errors are either the teaching of the Church or sound Catholic theology. In the comments section of many blogs, you can find almost any doctrinal error, being asserted as if it were true doctrine. There you can also find almost any true teaching of the Church, being undermined or attacked as if it were false doctrine.

In Catholic discussion groups, it is very common for Catholics to presume to teach, without first having learned. “My brothers, not many of you should choose to become teachers, knowing that you shall receive a stricter judgment.” (James 3:1).

It is very common for Catholics, in such forums, to teach, correct, and argue in such a way as to deny, contradict, and undermine the truths taught by Tradition, Scripture, Magisterium on important matters of faith or morals. Worse still, these false teachers often present their grave error as if it were the teaching of the Church.

When these many false teachers, usually working under a pseudonym, encounter a true teacher of the Faith, when they encounter someone who points out the errors in their claimed teaching and who offers the correct understanding in its place, the response is typically personal attacks, malice, anger, and derision. They have no real theological argument to offer to defend their claims. And when someone else presents a sound theological argument — based on Tradition, Scripture, Magisterium — to counter their falsehoods, they reply with malice and derision. They make personal attacks. They behave in a manner that is, in a word: Unchristian.

The most common false teachings spread online have to do with sexuality.

Some persons claim that contraception is not intrinsically evil and always gravely immoral. They claim that a married Catholic woman may morally use abortifacient contraception while continuing to have marital relations, as long as there is a medical purpose. The promotion of this false claim harms souls, convincing them to commit two grave sins: abortion and contraception. And it causes the deaths of innocent unborn children. These false teachers are responsible before God for the grave sin of formal cooperation with abortion; they are responsible for all the deaths of the innocents killed whenever they succeed in fooling a Catholic married couple into using abortifacient contraception.

Some persons claim that unnatural sexual acts can be used within marriage without sin. They devise all manner of clever and not-so-clever arguments to support this false teaching. But more often, they simply make the unsupported claim that such perverse acts are moral. And if anyone disagrees, they respond with malice, derision, harassment, and personal attacks. These false teachers are responsible before God for the grave sin of formal cooperation with unnatural sexual acts within marriage. They are responsible for grave harm to many marriages. They are partly responsible for the pornification of marriage. They commit these grave sexual sins within their own marriage, and then they go online to encourage others to commit the same perverse sexual acts in marriage. When I argue to the contrary of their words and sins, they respond with hatred and indignation. How dare I teach what the Church teaches on the sanctity and chastity of natural marital relations open to life!

Remember what Christ said: “For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. Neither was anything done in secret, except that it may be made public.” (Mk 4:22). Your anonymity does not hide your sins from God. And it may be the case, at some point in time, that your real name will become associated with the pseudonym that you hide behind. So you should not say anything anonymously that you would not be willing to say publicly under your real name.

And there are many other doctrinal errors and outright heresies that are being spread online, mostly by Catholics who hide behind a pseudonym. They teach in opposition to Christ, with the false claim that their teachings are His teachings. Some of their online words and deeds are objective mortal sins. Perhaps some of these sins are actual mortal sins. For the behavior of some persons online is entirely incompatible with the state of grace and with the love of God and neighbor.

Some of these persons will be punished by God forever in Hell. But they have no fear of God and no fear of Hell.

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian and
translator of the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Bible.