Language Confusion. It is essential to maintain appropriate boundaries between young people and ministry leaders.
1. Appropriate boundaries are essential to all who serve in a ministerial role, and are to be observed in regards to social media as well.
2. The role of ‘minister’ is distinct from ‘counselor’, ‘friend’ and ‘parent’. One ministering with young people should never take on the role of ‘surrogate parent’. For this reason ministers are highly discouraged from ‘trolling’ social media with the intent of seeking personal details of a young person’s life. While on-line statements are not private, it is the parents’ role to monitor their child’s behavior, and a minister is not to usurp this role. Intentionally monitoring where youth have shared intimate thoughts violates privacy in the same way that it would to read a journal.
3. Any information encountered within social media that creates a pastoral concern in regard to a minor should be immediately reported to appropriate authorities. Parents are to be informed immediately and legal authorities should be contacted as necessary.
4. To protect both adults and youth, ministers communicating with young people should avoid doing so with excessive frequency and at inappropriate hours. This applies regardless of the form of communication utilized.
5. Those serving in ministry are obligated to consistently represent the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church when using social media. To professionally maintain the trust of the church community, all communication is to be a tool of evangelization.
6. Healthy boundaries between youth and adults are essential. To be a ‘friend’ to a youth in a ministerial role is to be ‘friendly’ but is not to establish a peer relationship. A minister serves as a mentor and guide, walking with a young person as they journey in faith. Church Personnel are not allowed to be “friends” online with those under the age of 18. (See General Standard 3.4)
7. Church Personnel must say “no” if asked to be a friend on a personal social media site of a parent, student, parishioner or other individual who interacts with them only through this leadership role. (See General Standard 3.4)
