Hallow Heralds Guidelines (Last updated 8/30/2023)

Hallow Heralds is a community designed to help users grow in their prayer lives. It is intended to be a place for users to be able to interface with others to interact with the Hallow app in new ways and to meet other like-minded individuals. We want to create a place of safety and peace.

Free speech is incredibly important. We do not believe in censorship or silencing in the public square, social media platforms, or public debate. That being said, with the Herald community we are not trying to create a public social media platform, but an intimate and supportive community centered around the common purpose of sharing Christ with the world. So we will take seriously building the right culture of charity, welcoming, and peace, within the Herald community. In these regards, the following rules have been implemented to ensure our community is safe and fruitful.

Violent Speech/Suicidal Intent: No user may threaten harm, incite violence, or express desire to harm themselves or other persons.

Abuse/Harassment: No user may engage in harassing behavior of other users. Harassment shall mean any willful course or pattern of ill conduct directed at a specific person. This includes but is not limited to intimidation, incessant questions about his/her personal life, unwanted contact. This is aggravated if the content of the messages or behavior are of a sexual nature.

Hateful conduct: Users may not post or send private messages that demean, attack, or in any other way belittle a user based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, religious affiliation, age, disability, disease, or other attributes that make us individuals.

Inappropriate Content: Users may not post of send private messages containing material that is obscene, grotesque, or in any way deemed inappropriate by the administrators.

Unsolicited sales posts are not allowed. Hallow Heralds is a space that is ad-free and as such, we do not allow users to promote their own products, services, or other offerings (e.g., blogs).

We want to build a place that is both authentically Catholic and as welcoming as possible to all people from any background. We have folks in the community from all sorts of backgrounds and our interactions should always be charitable and welcoming to people from different faiths or perspectives. Hallow, as an organization, will always be 100% aligned with the official teachings of the Catholic Church and content that disrespects the Church or Holy Father will be removed. Content that questions Church teaching, if posted with charity, is permitted.

Anything not written in this section, but deemed, in the sole discretion of the administrators (or their designees) to be inappropriate for this platform will be removed and also subject to the penalties listed below.

In all enforcement activities, the administrators have sole discretion in taking actions they deem appropriate in the situation. However, the following are guidelines to be followed as closely as possible.

First Offense. For a first time violation, the User will receive a warning from administrators and the offending post or message will be removed.

Subsequent Offenses. Subsequent offenses shall result the following penalties, which are decided by administrators in their sole discretion taking into account the totality of the circumstances:

Account being made to be read only for a period of time.

Account being suspended for a period of time.

User being removed from the network permanently.

Appeal. If user objects to the decision of the administrator, they may reply to the message with a request for review. The administrator will submit the offending user’s reasons for objection to a panel for review. If they determine that the action of administrator is appropriate, the decision will stand.

Given our understanding of Church teaching, as Catholics we are called to participate in the political process. However, at Hallow we want to create a place of peace and an oasis from the arguments and division of the modern-day.

As a result, we agree to not post content that endorses a political party or candidate. Posts related to issues that the Church has official teaching on: such as the death penalty, if posted with an attitude of charity, are acceptable.