"Pope Francis Wants You To Be Holy Online"

Here's Michael O'Loughlin's take, at America, on the new apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate.  Here's a bit:

Reflecting on the beatitudes, Francis says that when Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers,” Christians often think of “many endless situations of war in our world.” But, he asks, what are the more personal situations that could benefit from a peacemaker?

“I may hear something about someone and I go off and repeat it,” he writes as an example. “I may even embellish it the second time around and keep spreading it.”

Though Francis does not point to social media specifically, he writes that people who gossip seek to harm the target, which leads to the gossiper taking even “more satisfaction” in the slander.

“The world of gossip, inhabited by negative and destructive people, does not bring peace,” he says. “Such people are really the enemies of peace; in no way are they ‘peacemakers.’”

Certainly, there's a lot of nastiness in "St. Blog's" and "Catholic Twitter."  Those of us who participate in these "spaces" need to do better.  And, of course -- as with calls for "civility" or "bipartisanship" in politics -- it's human to find it easier to see others' missteps than to confront one's own.