America welcomes thoughtful, respectful and well-reasoned comments from all of our readers. Our aim is to promote a civil and charitable discourse about topics of the day. To that end, we have a few rules:

1. Introduce yourself. We ask commenters to engage as themselves, not under (potentially anonymous) usernames, by setting up your user profile with your name. And remember that you’re in conversation with other real people.
2. Be brief. Keep your comments to a reasonable length (200-300 words should be the maximum). If you need to write more than that, you’re writing an article, not a comment, and those can be submitted here.
3. Keep on topic. Squarely address the topic of the article. Do not use comments as a soapbox for your favorite issues or causes.
4. Be charitable. Comments are for discussion, not for shouting down points you disagree with. Mercifully, it is not your responsibility, nor anyone else’s, to stop everyone who is wrong on the internet. Refrain from ad hominem attacks on authors and your fellow contributors. Be charitable even about those public figures with whom you may disagree.
5. Use your own words. Do not copy and paste long quotes from secondary sources. A link, or brief citation, will suffice. (To reduce the likelihood of spam, comments with links are likely to require approval by a moderator.)
6. Choose your spots. You should not comment on every article where comments are open, nor more than one or two times per article. Let other readers have their say. If you’re engaging in a long back-and-forth discussion with another commenter, consider shifting to email or direct messages on a social media platform.
7. Don't soapbox. Engage the article and other commenters about the article. Don't use the article as a jumping off point to deliver a lecture on the article's topic or to rattle off a set of talking points.

There are a number of different reasons that your comment may be automatically held for moderation before it's posted publicly. Comments posted after hours and on weekends may not be moderated until the next business day. Any questions about moderation should be directed via email to comments@americamedia.org rather than posted via the comments box — they will only be removed and may increase the likelihood of the system automatically holding your other comments for moderation.

Comments that do not follow this policy may be removed at the editors’ discretion. Ignoring the spirit of these guidelines (especially by being uncharitable or dominating the conversation) may lead to your comments being held for pre-moderation before being posted. Repeated violations will lead to commenting privileges being suspended for a time or removed permanently.

Comments submitted on this website may be considered for publication wherever America features responses from our community (letters to the editor, articles collecting reader responses, etc.). We reserve the right to edit posts for length or clarity.

Comment System Features

Comment Notifications

Want to be notified when another reader replies to your comment? You can turn on notifications for this and more in the “My Profile” tab at the top of the comments. (This is not the same as the “My Profile” found under “My Account” in the menu bar.) When you first turn this on, you’ll need to verify your email so the comments system can send you notifications. Click “Verify your email now” and check your inbox for a link. After that, you can choose to be notified when your comment has a reply, has been approved for posting, is replied to by a staff member or has been featured. 

Ignore

You also have the ability to “ignore” other commenters. To do so, click on their name.

You can undo this later from the “My Profile” tab.

Respect

Sometimes someone writes a comment that really moves the conversation along and adds to everyone’s understanding. That’s what the “Respect” feature is for. It doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with the comment or “like” it. But you do respect it. We don’t call it the “like” button because experience has shown it’s important to use a different word in a discussion than we use in social media feeds.

Report

Despite our best efforts, sometimes comments that violate our comments policy will slip through the moderation cracks. If you think we’ve missed one, please click the “Report” button on a comment to directly flag it for our attention. Again, this is for comments that violate our comments policy, not comments that you personally disagree with.

If you run into problems

Please report them to comments@americamedia.org.

We recognize that not everyone neatly fits into one of our digital subscription options (which can be found here). Below are some additional options for getting access to an America subscription. Above all, if you do not see yourself or your situation represented below, please get in touch.

• If you are part of a religious community or group that shares a household print subscription, you can link that subscription for unlimited digital access. If you have an issue with linking your subscription, please reach out to customer support.
• If you’d like to arrange a group digital subscription for your community or household, or have any other questions, please get in touch with us.
• If you are a Jesuit, please send us an email to find out about your subscription options.
• If you cannot afford an America subscription, we are here to help. Please send us an email and we will be in touch.

Dear Friends:

This letter is not a subscription renewal notice or a solicitation for support. I am writing to you from my heart about the crisis in the American church.

This is an agonizing time for the church in the United States. Catholics across the country are reeling from the recent disclosures of past sexual abuses committed by members of the clergy and the catastrophic failure of many of the church’s leaders to protect the most vulnerable among us.

I want you to know that we at America share your feelings of anger, sorrow and fear. As I keep reminding the editorial team, however, we have the luxury of being able to do something in the midst of our sense of helplessness: We can do our jobs. That is what we’ve been doing this summer and what we will continue to do in the weeks, months and years ahead.

In short, America is here for you. We don’t think of ourselves as just a magazine or a website. America Media is a ministry. As journalists, evangelists, as your fellow Christians, we promise to accompany you through this trial, to do everything in our power to provide you with the news, analysis and spiritual resources you need. Above all, we will strive every day to be faithful to our mission and motto to “Pursue the Truth in Love.” We need to listen to the truths of the victims and survivors above all. We need to help them tell their stories. And we need to pursue the truth about the cover-ups and failures, no matter where it leads.

But in order to do all of that, we also need a reason to keep the faith. Many people are asking right now why anyone would remain a Catholic in light of this scandal. It’s a fair question. I’ve heard from a lot of good, honest people who, looking at the record of crimes and cover-ups, ask how we can still talk about God or the church in any meaningful way.

In a recent Gospel reading at Mass, we were told that many of Jesus’ disciples were abandoning him. He asked the Twelve Apostles if they were going to leave too. Peter responds, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” As one of our executive editors said the other day, for those of us who choose to stay, Peter’s words are the life raft we cling to amid the wreckage of the American church.

But Peter’s story doesn’t end there. You know it well: Peter abandons Jesus, denying him three times. Yet after the resurrection, Jesus comes back for Peter, asking him three times, “Do you love me?” When Peter says “yes,” Jesus replies: “Feed my sheep.”

The summer of 2018 is not the first time that our faith has been tested. It will probably not be the last time, either. But the Gospel tells us that even when the church fails to be faithful to God, God never ceases to be faithful to us.

God is loving us even now. The pain of abuse and betrayal is real, but so is the healing power of love and reconciliation.

Jesus Christ still lives. Thus faith, hope and love will never die.

We are praying for you. Please pray for us.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Rev. Matthew F. Malone, S.J.
President & Editor in Chief

P.S. You can access all of our news, analysis and resources about this crisis at www.americamagazine.org/abusecrisis.