Community Guidelines

Purpose of this square

SummaSocial is the Catholic public square — social media in the shape of an open timeline: follows, posts, replies, quotes, profiles, discovery. We exist so the Church’s people can speak, argue, pray, create, and find each other in the open — without Silicon Valley censorship or faction-capture.

We are unabashedly Catholic. We are not a neutral “spirituality” network. We are also not the Church’s teaching authority, not a diocesan communications office, and not a political party.

How we hold the tension: the platform is Catholic in identity and hard limits; liberal in prudential speech. Hard limits protect persons and the sacred from abuse. They do not enforce a political program or a single Catholic media brand.

Faithful. Open. Ordered to truth.

Who is welcome

• Practicing Catholics and serious seekers who want honest conversation in public
• Converts, reverts, cradle Catholics, Eastern Catholics — Latin Mass and Novus Ordo alike: one Church, many styles of fidelity
• Writers, podcasters, artists, catechists, parents, students, clergy and religious who choose to be public, parish-adjacent laity
• Non-Catholic Christians and honest seekers who will tolerate a clearly Catholic culture
• Institutions (parishes, apostolates, schools, publishers) that want presence without owning the network

You may disagree sharply. You may be wrong. You are still welcome to argue in the open — with spine and charity.

What is welcome (even when heated)

We default to allowing lawful speech. Disagreement is not violence. Doctrine is not “hate.”

Generally allowed:

• Political disagreement across Catholic voting patterns
• Liturgical preference arguments, within ordinary charity
• Criticism of bishops, politicians, influencers, and media — without doxxing or threats
• Humor and memes that do not cross into exploitation or blasphemy-as-raid
• Theological argument, including hard questions about faith, praxis, and the life of the Church

Voluntary association is a feature: mute, block, and lists exist so people can shape their own square without demanding that everyone else be silenced.

What is not allowed

Always remove / ban-eligible

• Illegal content; child sexual abuse material; exploitation of any kind
• Credible threats; stalking; doxxing
• Non-consensual intimate imagery
• Spam, malware, and large-scale impersonation of living persons or institutions
• Clear harassment campaigns (not: one sharp reply)

Catholic identity limits (narrow, explicit)

• Do not use SummaSocial as a base to deny defined dogmas while flying official “Catholic” branding. Personal accounts may struggle with faith — that is human. Claims to represent a Catholic organization require honesty.
• Argue theology; do not run gore-blasphemy raids or treat the sacred as a weapon for abuse.
• Discuss ecclesial crises freely. Do not recruit for schism as product-featured content. Staff will not platform a “new church” as an official Summa vertical.

We will not pretend defined doctrine is optional branding. We will not invent doctrine we have no authority to define. We will not shame fellow Catholics into one political tribe or one liturgical preference as the price of belonging.

How reports and enforcement work (Week 0 honesty)

This is early. Full moderation tooling is not live yet. Until the square opens more fully:

1. Prefer tools over bans where possible — mute, block, and (when available) lists and rate limits for spam.
2. Reports go to a human queue (founder-led at first). Email summasocial19@gmail.com. Include links or screenshots and a short description of the harm.
3. We act on the hard limits above — illegal content, exploitation, threats, doxxing, spam, impersonation, harassment campaigns, and the narrow Catholic-identity abuses listed here.
4. We do not viewpoint-purge lawful disagreement on prudential politics, economics, or liturgy-within-bounds. We do not moderate like a state.
5. Labels, when used later, will be sparse and factual (e.g. account status) — never a “bad Catholic” score.
6. Staff and official Summa accounts model charity and clarity, stay faithful to Catholic teaching, and keep partisan politics out of product voice.

Outcomes may include content removal, temporary limits, or bans for ban-eligible conduct. We aim for transparency over secret invisible punishments as the product matures.

Appeals and contact

If we take action against your account or content and you believe we got it wrong, reply to the notice or write summasocial19@gmail.com with what was actioned, why you think it falls within these guidelines, and any context that was missing.

A human reads appeals. Early on, that human may be the founder. Response times will be imperfect; good faith still matters.

What this document is not

• Not a full Terms of Service or Privacy Policy (those ship before accounts open at scale)
• Not a catechism or a substitute for the Magisterium
• Not a party platform
• Not a promise that every sharp Catholic argument will feel comfortable

SummaSocial is an independent lay Catholic public square — not an official organ of the Holy See or any diocese. Independent of any political party.