Frequently Asked Questions

RCsocial.net is a Catholicism focused instance of the Mastodon social network. This is a place for folks interested in Catholicism to thrive. Everyone – Catholic or not – is welcome to join the discussion.

RCsocial.net is a friendly social networking space for those with an interest in Catholicism.  Being Catholic is not required – all seekers of truth are welcome here.  We ask only that everyone be respectful of each other, remembering always that God created every person in His image and with equal human dignity.

This service is for personal, non-commercial communications. Our only “rule” is to respect Christian values (so show civility towards each other, no NSFW content, etc.). Feel free to discuss topics outside our primary interest area whenever you wish.

The purpose of the big commercial services (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter) is to exploit you for financial gain and to isolate you from any information contrary to their extreme political, God-less worldviews (via very aggressive censorship and banning). Think of RCsocial.net as the opposite of that.

Thankfully there are now many sites in the “federation” (interconnected, independent social media sites). Each have their own primary areas of interest. Ours is Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, although you need not be either to join us.

While Catholicism is our primary area of interest, you are free to civilly discuss any topic that interests you. We hope that you feel welcome here and will make RCsocial.net your social media home.

RCsocial.net began service on July 4, 2018. We are now in our 8th year of service.

Unlike the tech giants, your data here is not sold or made available to any 3rd parties. Trackers are not used. Very good security measures are in place. In short, your privacy is respected.

However, there are points within the service where unauthorized access could occur. They can not be eliminated completely without negatively impacting the nature of the service. They are few and would be difficult to exploit, but not impossible. Truly confidential communications should be conducted by other means.

Finding an available but good, mnemonic, short, memorable, easily communicated domain name is challenging! This name is a compromise. RC stands for Roman Catholic, which unfortunately is not Catholicism in general as it does not encompass Eastern Rites including Ukrainian Greek, Syro-Malabar, Maronite, Melkite, Chaldean, Armenian and others. This service is – and has always been – focused on all of Catholicism, including our Eastern Rites.

In a nutshell: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)

RCsocial.net, like Catholicism itself, has no political ideology. Our ideology is truth, as revealed by Jesus Christ, preserved and taught by the Church He established to do so. It is our deepest hope that individual users always seek that truth and always view politics and culture in light of it.

Politics with the demands of the culture, for many quickly becomes an idol – placed ahead of God Almighty whose commandments and revelations are subjugated to it. That is profoundly backwards!

TLDR: beefy hardware and software. For more detail see our technology page.

RCsocial.net is (mostly) a functionally unmodified, up-to-date instance of Mastodon.  It tracks new Mastodon releases closely, often within hours of new upstream releases. The Mastodon and RCsocial.net release numbers are displayed in the footer of the About page.

However, RCsocial.net offers some unique features: light and dark purple themes (to represent the sovereignty of Christ), Holy Spirit dove with a branch in the primary liturgical color for each day, an appropriate “anonymous” avatar, improved text throughout, the maximum post size is increased to 2,025 characters (from 500), polls may have up to 8 options (increased from 4), an external uptime monitor, the Lord’s Prayer is embedded in every page’s metadata, this user guide and more.

All enhancements are fully interoperable with other federated sites (including all Mastodon instances). Therefore, while their users may be limited to sending 500 character posts (for example), they will display complete posts received from RCsocial.net users.

George Sipe (@George@RCsocial.net, email to George@RCsocial.net, or via contact form), a 2010 Protestant (Lutheran) convert to Catholicism.

I live in a suburb north of Atlanta with my wife of 47 years. We are parishioners of Mary Our Queen in Peachtree Corners, GA.

Now retired, I had worked in the computer industry (for various hardware and software companies) since the early 1970s. It’s changed a lot since then!

The #1 thing you can do right now is spread the word. Let your other social media friends, online forums, church groups, family, etc. know about us. We are visible to the world only as much as our users make us so! Please take a minute and give us a little plug right now. Your promotional efforts are very effective and much appreciated.

At our current size, this is a self-administered and self-funded site. In the future, additional administrators and moderators will be added as necessary to share the load and ultimately take the reigns, but we are not at that point yet.

Additionally, while there are a few recurring costs involved, they are not too bad at the moment.  If someday we are large enough to require serious resources, I may ask for some help. Thanks to all who have already offered.

FWIW, my hope is not only for RCsocial.net to grow, but for many more faithful Catholic and other Christian-focused instances to emerge and thrive.

As Catholics, we believe Jesus Christ established His Church that we be one, with Peter and the Apostles to lead it.  Catholics have an unbroken line of succession to those times and maintain the fullness of the Christian faith.  We consider, with the greatest love and respect, non-Catholic Christians as our separated brethren.

Below are all the English language Catholic and other Christian focused instances (who are currently accepting new users)… that I am aware of. Please contact me (see By Whom above) if you know of others! Status information is updated daily.

• RCsocial.net – Catholic – this site! (47 active users)

URL	https://rcsocial.net
Software	Mastodon
Version	4.1.25
Description	RCsocial.net: a friendly social networking space for those with an interest in Catholicism.
Active Users	47
Peers	23,117

• Fidelis.social – Catholic (14 active users)

URL	https://fidelis.social
Software	Mastodon
Version	4.3.4
Description	Adeste fidelis[sic], venite adoremus!rrIntended as a place for Catholic laypeople from other sites to have a home on Mastodon, but open to anyone and everyone.
Active Users	14
Peers	17,774

• Religious.social – Catholic religious (2 active users)

URL	https://religious.social
Software	Mastodon
Version	4.4.1
Description	For Catholic religious (deacons, priests, sisters, brothers, etc) to have a home on Mastodon. Others following know that someone @religious.social is legit.rrSister to fidelis.social.
Active Users	2
Peers	9,299

• Deacon – non-specific – Anglican admin (37 active users)

URL	https://deacon.social
Software	Mastodon
Version	4.2.20
Description	A respectful, loving, and diverse community of Christians of all traditions
Active Users	37
Peers	25,197

• End Time Believers – non-specific (0 active users)

URL	https://endtimebelievers.com
Software	Mastodon
Version	4.4.1
Description	Aware that we're living in the end times, in upside down world, we keep our faith in Christ as we move forward -- encouraging and strengthening one another. Our King Jesus is returning soon.
Active Users	0
Peers	4,513

• Episcodon – Episcopalian (18 active users)

URL	https://episcodon.net
Software	Mastodon
Version	4.4.1
Description	a Mastodon instance for Episcopalians
Active Users	18
Peers	20,118

• There's Life – non-specific (54 active users)

URL	https://theres.life
Software	Mastodon
Version	4.3.0-beta.1+glitch
Description	A family-friendly social network (Mastodon instance) devoted to the new life found in Christ.
Active Users	54
Peers	28,426

Thanks to Richard at theres.life for collecting it.  He also has links for those seeking non-English sites.