A note on civility...

In any debate, and certainly no less in liturgical debates, there are bound to be issues which fire people up. There will also be strong disagreements at times.

However, let me again lay out the ground rules for how our comments here should be:

1) Personal attacks should be avoided -- whether it be on the John Paul II, Bishop Trautman, David Haas, people commenting, etc. Intelligent critique of positions, statements is of course completely different than a personal attack, and are quite welcome.

2) Debate is welcome, but should maintain respect, and should be presented like you would present it in a formal debate or argument: reasoned and relatively dispassionate in other words.

3) We should not confuse critiquing with ranting either.

If you are feeling very angry about a particular comment, let me suggest that you type out your comment on your computer first and then walk away from it for a short time to settle down, re-read the post from the original commenter (or blog poster) again to see if you read all the details of their argument correctly. Re-read your own comments, and then use that opportunity to remove anything such as point #1 and #3 addresses, focusing instead on the approach delineated in #2 above.

This site has been noted for its lack of negativity, while still presenting critique, as well as for the attempts to keep disagreements and debates civil. This is a call to absolutely everyone: let's keep it that way. Let's keep things civil.