IAmA head moderator of /r/Catholic
So it's well after 10 here in Jerusalem and I have plans to go out and meet some redditors (irionically enough) so I will post this and then answer questions from my phone or tomorrow as I'll be busy the rest of tonight.
Out of the dozen or so places I mod, about half are a joke and half are very serious. One's like /r/Catholic and /r/VLasegas are different because they are sort of half of each. I feel strongly about both since I am currently a resident of Vegas but live abroad in Jerusalem and I am a Catholic. But both are similar in that they are half tongue and cheek and half the real thing AND this is important both are second fiddle to much larger subreddits like/r/vegas and r/catholicism
They are just the underdogs with a few subscribers and I try to make them into something, but they've been long cast aside and are misfits.. nobody modded them for 2-3 years and nobody showed them any love.
So I submitted a request to take over them. I had tried to submit things to both and both were caught by the spam filter since I was new there and how could I do anything when messages to the mods went unanswered and I then see they are inactive?
The solution: to take over using legitimate channels and patient requests.
Now the rest I've already said but people were kind to PM me and ask that I put it all in one place (Christians actually, who were polite and wanted to know what was up). Prior to this attack that began on our subreddit by a few people from r/Catholicism, not ONE SINGLE PM was sent to us or request for us to do anything. They just began a campaign of trashing us on other subreddits and appealing to the admins to do something. They never talked to us until we started defending our right to speak in their threads bashing us.
Here is and example of this type of post claiming that they know for certain that I am not a Catholic.
Well here is my evidence, as anyone I know from reddit who's seen me can also verify this:
Here is a picture of me the day I was confirmed walking out of the church.. I am Catholic
Also Sunday I submitted this photo album of my trip to Bethlehem, which has now been downvoted to hell and ignored from this witch hunt. It also has pics that verify who I am inside.
Now
The main reason I began being critical of the Catholic church was because my local priest was an accused molester and the church relocated him. When a local person confronted him privately our priest went into his funeral home and murdered him and a coworker. He then spoke at that man's funeral and relocated again. Years later the police caught up to him and he hung himself. A trial posthumously convicted him of the murders. This was a shock to us since he was a great priest and gave amazing sermons that would often make him erupt into tears. Little did we know he had a gun under his robes the entire time. He was not right in the head.
So the family from my town tried to appeal to the pope after this to see them privately or issue an apology but those requests were refused. I myself saw the crime scene about 45 minutes to an hour after the murder and, through a freak chance of luck, did not drive by it as it happened. Many friends from my small town were called as witnesses to who they saw in the area though.
It literally hit close to home, being only about 1.5 miles from my house.
Fast forward to today:
Why do they need another subreddit than /r/Catholicism (which is official subreddit for their religion)? The answer: They don't. They are just targeting me with a witch hunt. Every comment and thing I've done today has been downvoted to hell and back. Yes I can be an asshole and a troll, but that doesn't mean I don't hold to any beliefs or do not posses right here on reddit to speak my mind freely and express my beliefs in a subreddit I moderate. You are free to do the same WITHIN the confines of that subreddit.
I think we on reddit pride ourselves in freedom speech. I guess I'm testing those bounds, to tell it true.
They are upset about AND are supporting the censorship of any articles critical of their church and especially in favor of homosexual Catholics who I believe are treated unfairly. Their stance on birth control (now revised), the murders of my local priest (as a result of the Catholic church moving him around after his molestation allegations AND without telling anyone) AND their persecution of gay people (that do nothing to harm them at all) is what finally made me speak out against my church.
This is the original moderator there btw. He's still an approved submitter so can come forward if he likes.
[edit] Oh and I can be found at any number of bimonthly reddit meetups in Israel if you like to ask me about this in person. Just please don't make fun of my cankles (as a number of hateful comments and PM's have been doing. Those are flesh colored socks not cankles.
[edit] For those who don't know why I'm doing this. The imgur submission I am responding to on the front page. It was odd they didn't do a self post, but I guess there's no karma given for that:
[edit] leaving for a few hours, too many downvotes on this, it's controversial.. but I think we're breaking ground.
Posted Aug 23, 2011, 7:29 PM UTC · edited