de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 0:00 This is a very special episode 39 of Ethics and Culture Cast from the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. Welcome to Episode 39 of Ethics and Culture Cast from Notre Dame's de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. I'm Ken Hallenius, the communications specialist at the center. In this episode, we chat with Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble of the Daughters of St. Paul and Fathers Harrison Ayre and Anthony Sciarappa, host of the Clerically Speaking podcast. They were on campus as members of a panel discussion on digital friendship at our 20th annual Fall Conference. Let's sit down for this delightful conversation. Well, thank you so much for coming to be with us not only here today as we chat, but also thanks for coming to the Fall Conference because, in the room, we have people who've traveled literally thousands of miles in some cases to come be with us here at South Bend for the 20th annual fall conference. So thank you so much. Fr. Harrison Ayre 1:18 No problem. Thanks for having us. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 1:19 You are welcome. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 1:23 Well, so that we can establish who's where in your stereo audio field. Sister. Tell us a bit about yourself. Tell us where are you from? What's your congregation? Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 1:35 So my name is Sister Teresa Aletheia and I am from the Daughters of St. Paul. And I traveled from our convent in Boston, which is our mother house in the US and Canada. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 1:46 Welcome. Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 1:46 Thank you. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 1:47 Yeah, and I'm Father Anthony Sciarappa. I'm a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. I've been ordained about three years, a little more than three years now. And I co-host a podcast Clerically Speaking with the person who's about to speak now. Fr. Harrison Ayre 2:02 And I am Father Harrison Ayre, the other voice of Clerically Speaking, I hail from a foreign land, a foreign land called Canada or as our friend likes to say, Canada. Canada. So yeah, I'm from the Diocese of Victoria, which is on Vancouver Island. Part of it actually is below the 49th parallel, interestingly enough, but yeah, so I'm there. I've been ordained four and a half years, and I'm a pastor in a small town called Port Alberni, totally family, Notre Dame parish and also pursuing doctoral studies because I'm a crazy guy. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 2:40 Awesome. Well, welcome. Sister, how long have you been in your congregation? Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 2:44 I joined in 2010. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 2:46 Excellent. What did you do before? Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 2:48 Um, so after I graduated college, I was in Teach for America for two years. So I taught in an inner city school in Miami. And then after that, I traveled for a little bit and then I got into IT. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 3:06 Well, you all came to speak at our 20th annual fall conference this year, "I Have Called You Friends." And really, you're part of a panel discussion about the idea of digital friendship. And for those who haven't been able yet to watch the video of the panel, which is on our YouTube channel--by the time this comes out--for those who haven't been able to watch that conversation yet, give us a little bit of a synopsis of your conversation. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 3:37 Yeah, so we did it in just kind of three or five minute we gave a little little talks and we approach it from different ways. So sister, you went first, and you were talking basically about how the internet and social media can actually lead us to virtue. And I took the opposite stance with my talk. Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 3:54 Can. Can. I mean, it is conditional. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 3:59 Yes, very conditional. And then we had Shannon Last who was with us. And she talked more about just the experience of friendship online and what that's done for her and those examples and that sort of thing. And then Harrison shockingly, went all theological and Ratzingerian on us in the so that's that's a very brief. It was the best panel all week. I mean, in my opinion, yeah. Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 4:27 By far, yeah. Fr. Harrison Ayre 4:27 So yeah, absolutely. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 4:29 And this is where Father Harrison leans in with the alternate voice, right? Yeah. The response, the republican rebuttal, as we would say. Fr. Harrison Ayre 4:39 I like to, I think for me, like one of the things we've been we've tried to talk about like, what, like how social media leads to not that we're not satisfied often with online relationship, that as a friendship begins to deepen through the online interaction you want to meet in real life essentially, right. So, we have reflected on that. We reflected on like, or at least I tried to reflect on briefly on this idea that we often treat media as extension. Because that's how we treat the body, because that's what modernity is kind of all in on that, that's not a Christian anthropological perspective that, no, actually, we're embodied souls and that every action we do, is it kind of an imprint of our being on the world. And so if we start to understand it that way, than what we put out on Twitter, or Facebook, whatever, it's actually a bit of a sacrament of our personhood, and that means we have to approach how we communicate with that, from a Christian perspective vastly differently. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 5:35 Yeah, that's what it came out because we kind of wrote our our little talks individually, but I think it's something that came out with this interplay between bodiliness and how that does or doesn't work on social media and the phenomenon of that. And then, Sister, you had some good things to say because you talk a little bit about grace and the interaction as well. In friendship, and how that worked. Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 5:57 Yeah, and I try, I tried to lean into being a bit controversial just because I thought it would make the conversation more interesting. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 6:06 Play the devil's advocate, as it were. Fr. Harrison Ayre 6:07 Wait, grace is controversial? Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 6:09 Not grace, but social media in general and speaking about it in terms of virtue and friendship, and the positive possibilities for that is not something that most people want to talk about. It's very easy to be negative about social media. And so I tried to think about how our relationships throughout history have been mediated in some sense through letter writing and things like that. And so, social media is definitely a different animal. But it's not as different as we like to think and as an alien to that concept of living virtue and living friendship. So that was what I tried to argue. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 6:46 This is something that I know I've thought a lot about in terms of, you know, Facebook tells me I have 1046 friends, right? How many of those have I met in real life? So kind of approaching that epistolary friendship idea, but then what does it mean when I can "de-friend" somebody with a single click. And then, counterpoint that with the idea of Twitter mobs, right? And the piling on, that when you only have 140 characters in which to express yourself or 280. Yeah. But even that, you know, it's so easy to take anything out of context. And then for that to be literally, what is it they say, "The lie is, you know, halfway around the world before the truth has had a chance to put its boots on." Well, that's most true in Twitter. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 7:34 Yeah, so it's, we're definitely, we are friends in this room because of social media and genuinely so and we've, you know, had the experience of meeting even people at this conference, who we've been acquaintances with on social media, so we've experienced the fruits of it as well. And we have definitely all of us in different ways, experienced a lot of the evils of it as well. So I think that's informed our discussion. And part of it is, there are a lot of different ways to use social media. So if you're on Facebook, and you're just connecting with family and friends or making, you know, work acquaintances, that's one way to use it. If you're on Twitter, just to check the news, that's one thing. If you're pushing a brand or a product, that's one thing. If you're just out there talking with people, it's one thing. But even in all of those things, and where you, in my opinion, where you see social media go wrong is when we disassociate ourselves from our accounts and other people's accounts from themselves, from the real person. Because any kind of expression of yourself on social media is going to be authentic in some way. It might not be in the way you think. It may reveal to you kind of your sinful nature, because what happens when I'm not worried about what someone else thinks about me? And all of a sudden I realize I'm not really worried what God thinks about me. So I will type this thing out right now. Right? So it is you out there, and if you're trying to construct an avatar and a personality, why you're doing that as revealing something about who you are. So it gives us the illusion that we're detached from our accounts, but it's always an expression of ourselves. Fr. Harrison Ayre 9:05 Amen. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 9:06 I love when you just agree with me. That does not happen very much on our podcast. Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 9:09 It's rare, yeah Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 9:09 It's beautiful. Thank you. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 9:13 We've heard some counter voices even to that, though, of course, we were all gathered as Alisdair MacIntyre spoke and... Fr. Harrison Ayre 9:19 He was sub-tweeting us. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 9:28 But that's one of the things that do, you know, as we're sitting in sessions, and as we're hearing talks, and the conversation is taking place, even at our fingertips, while we're engaged or not engaged in what's going on here. What have been some of the highlights that you have heard while you've been here? Fr. Harrison Ayre 9:48 For me, I, it's been I think, what has been fascinating is how the conversation continues after a panel or whatever or you find out that we've met--I'm forgetting his name. The, from Rome. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 10:02 Father Jordi Pujol. Fr. Harrison Ayre 10:04 Yeah, Father Jordi Pujol. We've been talking all three days, right, because this is an area of extreme interest to him. We had a fascinating conversation at lunch with him and a few other people today. So that the conversation continues right? And that we're just we're approaching it from, I would say...Or how does he put it? He's like, it's like you guys are doing the laboratory. You're just kind of you're trying things out. Right. And I think we're here because the laboratory is kind of worked for us for whatever reason. But he has like some concerns and he had, he's like he had some concerns. He said I've been more pessimistic about some things. But so it's interesting here that but that we can have a dialogue and that we're all here to seek the truth together that we're not here to just say, "No, you're wrong," and, "No, you're wrong" and he has no no, we both have something substantial actually to share about the conversation that can help us all come into a deeper truth about the thing. And that people are interested to want to have that discussion is really, it's really fruitful. And it's been, it's just been it's a beautiful experience of leisure. Really, that's what it is. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 11:13 It is the basis of culture, as we know. Fr. Harrison Ayre 11:15 Yes. Yes, it is. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 11:16 Yes. Yes, Quite. Fr. Harrison Ayre 11:18 Quite, right. Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 11:21 I think what I found really fascinating is every panel that I've been to, we're talking about friendship, but we're all talking about it in different ways and according to different definitions of friendship, and so it was interesting to hear Alisdair MacIntyre's pessimism about the possibility of friendship, but I also think he was speaking of spiritual friendship like St. Aelred's view of someone who you can pour your entire heart out to and, and really just share everything with. And I do think social media makes that kind of relationship difficult to actually conduct over social media. But, yeah, it's been really interesting for me just to listen to everyone's point of view and to kind of figure out what definition of friendship are they working from, and everyone, almost everyone is working from a different definition of friendship. And that's been very fascinating for me too. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 12:18 This is my first fancy academic conference I've ever been to. And it's wonderful. So I don't know how this works if you're using different topics, but it's may have noticed that so we're having all these panels, discussions, papers on friendship, immediately after everyone's gathered in a common area talking to, experiencing friendship. And there's something particularly just the the people here, when you have conversations them, seeing them pursue holiness, trying to find the Catholic thing. And it's, it's neat to kind of experience it in a very informal way and then talk about it in a formal way. And that dynamic that interplay has been really fun and life giving. So to be talking about something that affects us all the time. I've really enjoyed And just seeing how that works. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 13:03 The fellowship outside of the sessions is just as important as that in the session. Fr. Harrison Ayre 13:09 Yeah, absolutely. Where I'm from a smaller town and I would never get anything like this in my diocese, right. So it's like, and as an extrovert, I'm just like, "People! People who want to talk about ideas!" So I just like thrive. It's been it's been life giving for me really, honestly, it's like, I don't want to leave. Will you keep me? de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 13:34 We do this every year. Fr. Harrison Ayre 13:37 Initially, I wanted to say one thing about like, what we're talking about, like this, hearing other perspectives. One of the things, I have heard from some people, they'll say, "Well, I'm still pessimistic that we should even be in that space." But I think like our argument has been kind of been, it's there. And it's a deeply embedded element of culture now. And so no matter how much pessimism or reserve you might have about it, we can't just turn, we can't just stick our heads in the sand about it anymore. That we have to figure out a way forward. And it's still new. This is still new. So I think actually, this is a, it's been actually the interesting thing I found is how much actually social media is coming up in different contexts. And different, like different lectures, I've gone to them a lot of people actually talked about this as like, just a little aside. So it tells me that people are aware that this is a conversation. I think like one of the things we've been talking about this is this is a work that needs to be done even more now. We actually need to actually have theological and philosophical reflection on what is the nature what is the Christian response to this? How do we engage us in a Christian way? Cause there's not a lot out there on that yet. And I think this is something we if we're going to the mode will change obviously over time. But the fact and the reality it's, it's like I was saying to them it's like the when the telephone came on the scene, it disrupts. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 14:55 Everybody hated them then. Fr. Harrison Ayre 14:56 Yeah, exactly. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 14:57 Would you, I mean, what I hear you saying--in other language--is Pope Francis is going to the margins. Fr. Harrison Ayre 15:04 Yeah, de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 15:04 Thinking of social media as where so many eyeballs are, but are still really part of the margins. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 15:11 Especially on social media. So there's all kinds of people who go but literally all kinds of people, some people may not ever leave their house to hear the gospel are going to be on social media as well. So you do and you experience people who do have a poverty of friendship or social interaction and how social media in some way has become a benefit to them in some ways become just kind of added to that hindrance in their lives. And so it's so important to to be present on that. Now. There can be a temptation with anything that's new is for people to get real excited about it like this will fix everything right. The Church is on social media, sister is tweeting about death on social media. Everything's gonna be okay now. It's like, no, no, this is important and it's a big part of it, but this is part of a larger context. Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 15:55 And we're still gonna die. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 15:56 Yeah, whether you like social media or not, you're gonna die. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 16:01 It is the month of November, the month of the holy souls. And somebody actually, so in our control room, or our kind of room central for the staff here at the fall conference, I've had a Twitterfall going. And somebody's like, "What's up with the skull and crossbones next to Sister's name there?" And it was like, well, this is part of her ministry for the month, you know, evangelization in a way, Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 16:26 Right, and it's all year round for me, but people just pay more attention, right now. Fr. Harrison Ayre 16:32 Spooky Season. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 16:34 Spooky season is over, isn't it? de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 16:36 No, no, we're still in. I mean, for Catholics. Well, that's part of you know, you mentioned for you year round. The last kind of thing I want to talk about is this idea of, how does digital media, social media, how is it used in your pastoral ministry in the work that you do. You know, of course, obviously there's podcasts, there's blogging, there's writing, there's publishing, but how do you how do you use social media? And in your work? Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 17:11 Yeah, so the Daughters of St. Paul are called to use modern media the most efficacious means of media. So that's really the most modern means right now is social media. So we still publish books. And that's really where a lot of our energy is focused around bringing books to parishes, we run bookstores, I work in the publishing house. So a lot of people think, I'm you know, my full time job is to be on Twitter and Instagram. And that's really something I've just been doing in my free time because among the younger sisters, we feel this call to be present in in these forms of media because it's no longer the margins. This is where people are. I mean, Father Pujol. He, he had a statistic that 45% of teens say that they are online almost always. Like that's the phrase that they used. So this is where people are living right now. And so it is really crucial that the church catch up and at the church meet these people where they are on what Benedict XVI would call the digital continent because this is really where people are living and breathing. And we're really called to be a sign of the gospel online and bring the gospel to the people online. So I think that's what all of us are trying to do. Fr. Harrison Ayre 18:33 Yeah, I think it's a little more different for probably Father Anthony and I because we're diocesan priests. My parish, about 50% of the parishioners don't even have a computer. So it's like, my ministry that I do with social media and podcasting doesn't really affect my local parish, but I try to make sure it never overtakes that either. I like the way we try to schedule our podcasts. It's always with a lot of time in advance so we can assure our parish gets the primary attention. That's where, that's where our bishops placed us – our bishops have not commissioned us to go out there to do these things. It just kind of happened. Right. But I mean at the same time, where I've seen like--and you see the ministry through the podcasts and through Twitter--the positive effects it's had for people who would never have had a chance encounter with and who, you know, you've heard people say I've gone back to confession because of something you tweeted or whatever. And it's like whoa, like this is a great ministry that's not maybe affecting anything locally for me, but it's affecting people on the on the larger scale. However I would say that I'd say like the one little bit where it does kind of tie in with ministry for me is when I started a young adult group at the cathedral before I was moved, most of them listen to the podcast now because they really enjoyed like listening to stuff I have to save with for them. So they are they still can get that fruit even though I'm not there anymore. And so yeah, yeah. And they like Father Anthony, too. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 19:52 Yes. Or at least I've heard as much. Sometimes I struggle with this because maybe, maybe it's because we overuse the word ministry, sometimes. So for me, and I've been thinking about this a lot since I first joined social media. I did it more or less as a joke like, Oh, this is fun, people are talking to people, like, let's just see what we can do here. But everywhere a Christian goes, there should be good fruits that follow them, if you're made an image likeness of God, and more so than that you are a child of God and Holy Spirit within you, all of your interactions, all of your being should be producing good fruit because Christ is with you, and in you, and in a particular way for the priest. So for me, I've decided that you know, and there are some priests who use social media more as a ministry, in how they actively use it. For me, it's more of a witness kind of thing. In the same way that when I hear I'm going to the grocery store, and in my clerics, I may speak with people that may speak with me, they may just see me and see me out there in the open and that's a good thing. It's the same way in social media for me, and maybe a little bit different because I'm not going to necessarily post a spiritual reflection on a wall and grocery store. Maybe I should, I don't know, like write it on the eggs. I don't know. Fr. Harrison Ayre 21:01 Put memento mori stickers on all the eggs. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 21:04 Put skulls on all the eggs? Fr. Harrison Ayre 21:06 This chicken died. Right? Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 21:09 One of the benefits is from people who have seen, you know the sisters interact together over the people the priests interact, it gives people a kind of peek into the lives of people they normally don't see all that often. You know, a lot of people only experience their priests on Sundays and you're experiencing in that moment, a very important part of the priest's life and who he is, but you're not experiencing all of it. Same thing with when you see sisters or other Catholics too. Sometimes people just finding other people pursuing holiness online is such a relief because maybe they'll have that in their family. Maybe they'll have that in their community. So I think this aspect of witness is how I mostly see the ministry of being online for me. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 21:50 Sure. Wonderful. Well, this has been a delightful conversation and we are grateful again that you came to be part of the fall conference and you are, of course, certainly invited to come join us for the 2020 conference. But, thank you so much for the contribution and for your friendship. Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble 22:14 Thank you. Fr. Harrison Ayre 22:15 This has been a blessing. Fr. Anthony Sciarappa 22:16 It was a really cool opportunity. So we were happy to do it. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 22:18 Thank you. Thank you to Sister Theresa Aletheia, Father Harrison, and Father Anthony. You will find links to Sister's website, to the Clerical Pod podcast, and to the YouTube playlist of talks from our 20th annual Fall Conference, in the show notes. Subscribe to Ethics and Culture Cast so that you can always get the latest episodes by visiting ethicscenter.nd.edu/podcast. We would love your feedback. Please review the show on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcast, and email your suggestions to cecpodcast@nd.edu. Our theme music is, "I Dunno" by grapes, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. We'll see you next time on Ethics and Culture Cast. Until then, make good decisions. Transcribed by https://otter.ai