Catholics in New Media: CyberCatholics

Anybody who watches TV probably knows GoDaddy.com. Their advertisements lean heavily on (i.e. blatantly abuse) the old adage (and statistical fact) that “sex sells.” In the process they also objectify women, are an occasion of sin, indulge a sinful culture and totally disrespect the dignity of the human person. Unfortunately, they also happen to offer a very competitive product in their website hosting service. These factors have combined to give them lots of business. That’s a shame.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had Catholics and others ask what alternative options they have for hosting their website where, in the process, they aren’t complicit in promoting the filth that GoDaddy.com and others like them support and propagate. Many such immoral businesses, including a very large percentage of the other companies we patronize as well, also give money and support organizations like Planned Parenthood and other morally objectionable endeavors.

The great news is that we are beginning to get some moral alternatives. CyberCatholics.com is one of them.

“cyberCatholics.com is the venture of two people, Fr. Christopher Decker and Joshua LeBlanc. Fr. Chris and Josh began cyberCatholics.com as a way to combine their talents of multimedia and evangelization. The cyberCatholics.com project was officially launched on December 8, 2000, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. [...] After moving from server to server because of the site constantly being blocked by various groups due to sharing servers with other sites that had morally objectionable content, cyberCatholics purchased its own server in October of 2007.  This purchasing has enabled cyberCatholics.com to offer 100% Catholic web-hosting that is both free of donations to planned parenthood, as we use completely open-source software, and completely free of pornography.” - from their website

They offer a whole slew of options, from the “Catechumen” package on up to the “Confirmand.” It is “shared-hosting,” which is precisely what most every website needs, especially when starting out. And the prices are very affordable!

I haven’t had the opportunity to use their hosting packages first-hand. But you can find a list of their clients on their website so I would encourage you to follow-up with some of them if you’re interested.

Please pass this resource on to your “web-people” at your parish or organization for their consideration. We inadvertently support so many immoral things in our day-to-day lives because of how much they are intertwined with where we, often unavoidably, spend our money. When we can, it is always nice when our purchases can go a bit further and work to build up the moral fabric of the economy, not to tear holes in it. CyberCatholics.com is one of those opportunities.

What other products or services do you use (for anything at all, but particularly online) that are offered by morally upright businesses?  Feel free to share a link and something about them in the combox below.

Catholics in New Media is a weekly series highlighting something particularly awesome going on in the Catholic world of new media.