Posted on 07/21/2021 7:06:58 PM PDT by marshmallow
The prospect of private parties using national security-style surveillance technology to track the movements and activities of bishops, priests, and other Church personnel is raising concerns about civil liberties, privacy rights and what means are ethical to use in Church reform efforts.
The issue was first raised in 2018, when a person concerned with reforming the Catholic clergy approached some Church individuals and organizations, including Catholic News Agency.
This party claimed to have access to technology capable of identifying clergy and others who download popular “hook-up” apps, such as Grindr and Tinder, and to pinpoint their locations using the internet addresses of their computers or mobile devices.
The proposal was to provide this information privately to Church officials in the hopes that they would discipline or remove those found to be using these technologies to violate their clerical vows and possibly bring scandal to the Church.
CNA and others at the time declined this party’s offer, but there are reports this week that information targeting allegedly active homosexual priests may become public.
The U.S. government’s widespread use of surveillance technology to monitor individuals has been widely known since the 2013 revelations of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
And while there are reports of private corporations using similar techniques to keep track of employees, this is thought to be the first proposal to apply such measures in the Church.
“Basically, this technology is capable of pinpointing individuals who have downloaded a ‘gay app,’ finding out how much they are using it, and then figuring out, thanks to the geolocation technology, if they live at a seminary, or work at a parish or a major Catholic organization,” said one Catholic specialist on digital technology and data gathering, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnewsagency.com ...
Kind of spooky, but hey, the technology is out there.
Ask your average 4th Grader. A lot of them already know how to use such location devices. It’s like a game to them.
Just presume the moment you leave your house, somebody or something could be monitoring your moves.
There is a huge difference between civil liberties and ecclesial liberties. Let justice roll.
If you can’t trust a priest....
The article obscures the fact that the General Secretary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops was outed as having used Grindr, gone to gay bars etc.
The news service site does not want to traffic in gossip, which is generally Christian and commendable....but....
The USCCB picked as their coordinator and manager a man who trolls for gay pickups. It is almost impossible that his proclivities were unknown, and they gave him prestige and power.
If the story hadn’t gone public, this guy would have been a bishop within the next year—and a powerful one at that. We have plenty of McCarricks in office and in the pipeline. This one got caught.
Good point. We don’t need to violate people’s rights and track them, the clergy know among themselves who is up to no good.
Of course they do; yet they won't "out" each other, e.g. McCarrick. Which is all the more reason for the laity to "out" the homos since no one else will.
Don't forget: It's Church Militant, not Church Milquetoast.
Of course they do; yet they won't "out" each other, e.g. McCarrick. Which is all the more reason for the laity to "out" the homos since no one else will.
Don't forget: It's Church Militant, not Church Milquetoast.
“Just imagine how many priests that have used the grinder app are freaking out right about now,” Lepanto Institute founder and president Michael Hichborn said in a Facebook post.
“The revelation regarding Msgr. Burrill is a drop in the bucket on the information contained in that dataset,” he added.
Anybody who surveils me will be quite bored.
Freaking is what they do.
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