I have an older brother, 5 years older than me. When we were younger, we were slightly less supervised than your average ‘90’s kids. Our parents were divorced, our mom worked two jobs and so we were generally always on our own. Also, my brother had a tendency to run his mouth more than was reasonable for a kid as short as he was. So, it was not uncommon for him to find himself seconds away from a fist fight when he’d employ one of his favorite lines:

“My little sister could beat you up.”

Now, you’ve probably never seen me in real life but it’s a running joke that I’m a relatively small person. I regularly have to remind people that 5’3” is an absolutely normal height for an adult woman. But in all these scenarios, I was laughably smaller than everyone else given that I was 5 years everyone’s junior. Still, that didn’t stop me from puffing out my chest and mean-mugging a little in my brother’s defense.

Only once did one of my brother’s foes call my bluff. He advanced toward me in the basement of the Grand Island Nebraska YMCA like he planned to take a swing. Like any reasonable person I shouted “You’d have to catch me first” and ran.

It should surprise no one at all that he did catch up to me, pretty quickly. He grabbed and pulled my hair. I was so shocked that I turned quickly, grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and slapped him. Twice. Once backhand. If it hadn’t been 1993 someone would have recorded it and it would have been super punk rock. But as it stands, you’re just going to have to believe me. Or, here, ask my mom:

Now that I’m an adult I think back on that scene every now and then. Because once the adrenaline died down and my brother had gotten into trouble for starting fights in the YMCA basement, the whole thing was less hardcore, it was ridiculous.

And what kind of big brother has his sister do his fighting for him?

That same image comes to mind for me when I catch myself about to get defensive in comments sections. I rarely get into arguments online anymore, but when I do it’s almost always in defense of someone I care about who I feel has been maligned. More than once I have had these friends tell me I didn’t need to rush to their aid every time someone was mean to them on the internet. They are all adults after all, perfectly capable of taking criticism or ignoring trolls all on their own. They don’t need little old me coming to their rescue.

For some reason, we Catholics have the same tendency I had as a child. We want to puff out our chests and stand up to perceived wrongs no matter how foolish we look doing it. What’s worse is that like 8-year-old, chicken-legged, 50-pounds-soaking-wet Katie Ruvalcaba, we will land a few good hits and declare victory. Forgetting, not only that our actions created permanent divisions, but were also completely unreasonable.

Because, unlike my brother, Christ and His Church are not asking us to fight their battles for them.

I get the appeal. When someone is hateful toward the Catholic Church it’s easy to want to rush to her defense. Same with Jesus and Mary. I get that. But consider, what does that look like to those outside the church? Evangelization Lab interviewed hundreds of content creators and comms directors last fall and one of the things we asked is what people were weary of seeing online. “In-fighting” was a top answer.

The irony here is staggering. We have our apologists out here claiming we can know the Catholic Church is the one true church because it is “one”, “holy” and “apostolic”, meanwhile we are online presenting as fractured, worldly and individualistic. The Armchair Magisterium has got to stop.

Not only does it make us as Catholics look bad and isolate those who might be interested in us, but it makes Christ look weak! What type of almighty King sends out a weak little keyboard warrior to defend Him? He’d probably remind us that he gave us some pretty explicit instructions when it came to fighting.

Our Lord told Peter in the garden in Matthew 26:53: “Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels?” Like my online friends, Our Lord would probably very much like to DM us and tell us to stop making Him look like He needs our help.

Earlier, in chapter ten, Christ says, “If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet...” Not sit there and argue until one of you admits defeat or dies in the process. Just, let it go.

The Church does not need our defense.

But, contrarywise (a word I have tried to use in everything I’ve ever written since I was in the play “Alice in Wonderland” in high school), we were given explicit instructions to let our light shine, to love our enemies, rejoice in the prodigal son, be the good Samaritan, and bless people who persecute us.

What does this look like?

When someone disagrees with me online, I should view it with the greatest of charity. Assume their concern about my hem length or amount of shoulder showing comes from a genuine concern for the state of my soul. Say “Thank you for your concern! Please pray for me!” then dust off my feet. Or more to the point: I could listen. I could reply “You’ve given me something to pray about.” And then, horror of horrors, I could pray about it.

Maybe have my heart changed.

We are not going to argue so well that someone forms a personal relationship with Christ. There’s no logic so convincing that the person who hears it simply crumbles into submission. Our research (which is still being conducted and is so far anecdotal!) indicates that most people who softened to the Catholic faith did so because someone in their life, online or in person, showed a joyful witness of that faith, not an excellent argument. And once that softening happened they went to professional apologists with very gentle tones (Hi Bishop Barron! Hi Trent!) to answer their lingering questions.

Christ doesn’t need a defender, He needs us to be known entities online, people that can be approached to give a reason for their hope, not for their logic.

We won’t be known by our arguments.

We will be known by our love.