Sharing a few personal thoughts…
The late Cardinal Hickey was acutely aware of the problems with accountability in regard to the new media. However, this also led to our slow acceptance of the internet as a forum for communication. Every word placed online supposedly passed through his office first. Indeed, it was during his tenure that Fr. John Brady’s Ministr-o-Media audio tape ministry was shut down. The archdiocesan effort was housed at the Pastoral Center and had gained a national reputation for wonderful programs about the faith, spirituality and American Catholic Church history. If the masters still exist, these are gems that might be placed online as mp3 files. The aging priest is still with us and I am sure he would be delighted to resurrect these resources.
The move to greater utilization of the internet is way overdue, but it also brings with it inherent problems of accountability. We would want to insure that anything presented has the stamp of approval of the Church. While the Church gives approbation to books, she has not caught up with how to do the same for rapid internet communications. On the other side of the equation, how can we insure that those taking online classes are indeed the ones seeking certification? Various programs for credit, as with Dayton or Catholic Distance Learning employ proxy-testing to insure that the desired learning is acquired by the designated persons.
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