A Description And Evaluation
of the PetersNet website

http://www.petersnet.net;
http://www.trincomm.org.

Trinity Communications (Petersnet-Dom)

Jeffrey A. Mirus.

Jeffrey A. Mirus, President,
Peter V. Mirus, Vice-President,
Kristina Mirus
and consultants.

Based on the last names of those involved who are dealing at arm's length, Peter's Net is suspected of being a privately owned family business.

jeff.mirus@trincomm.org

Please note here the intermixing of the two organizations whereas this email address is to "trincomm.org" and not to "petersnet.net".

13550 Frost Drive
Nokesville
VA
20181
USA

1-703-791-2576

15-Apr-1997 according to "domainregistry.com".

Because of the manner in which this web site is organized (or disorganized), it is unclear as to what service belongs to what organization when two groups have been registered: "Trinity Communications" at "trincomm.org" and "PetersNet" at "petersnet.net" and both URL contain the same material.

Based on the mandate that follows, it can be deducted that only the database is associated with PetersNet.

The self-appointed mandate of Petersnet is "a web site which provides a search-engine for Catholic information across the web as well as its own database of Catholic documents."

This mandate is very "vague" as "catholic information across the web" can consist of just about anything that is Catholic.

Rating And Evaluation

Based on the above personnel list, which excludes clergy members, it appears that the self-appointed lay persons who are associated with PetersNet are not accountable to anyone in the Catholic Church other than the President of PetersNet.

Although the evaluations of PetersNet appears to have an extra- territorial authority, such is not the case. For every Bishop is responsible for the faithful within their own Diocese, such including the lay people, the clergy and those who embrace a religious life. Not only does PetersNet's workers disregard the local Church authority of the Bishops over the faithful, but it has raised itself above all Bishops on an international level that parallels the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith.

One's first opinion when visiting PetersNet is that it is somehow associated with the Vatican. This false impression is perceived by the fact that PetersNet has irrelevant graphics that display the "keys of the Catholic Church," "Vatican City," and "Pope John-Paul II."

These graphics reinforce the misrepresentation of PetersNet that it has some authority that has been handed down to it by the Holy See when in fact, PetersNet is nothing more than a handful of individuals who are trying to dictate to the Catholic faithful what they should read or visit on the Internet to ensure that those actions correspond with their subjective thinking. Brainwashing cults apply similar practices to control their followers, dictating to them what they can do and what they cannot do, this taking away the free will of the individual.

Over and above the aforementioned, by displaying a coffee cup on its website, PetersNet has total disrespect for those who are addicted to caffeine. A coffee cup is not a symbol of the Catholic faith and never has been. For those who are addicted to coffee and who have high blood pressure, the graphic of a coffee cup serves as a temptation that could lead to the death of the visitor if he does not resist the urge to drink coffee.

During my investigation of the manner in which PetersNet provides its Site Description And Evaluation," it has come to my attention that its practice is to infringe on international protected copyright material by quoting material in part or in whole without the prior permission of the author.

This practice is a gross disrespect of International Copyright Laws and the uniqueness of the work of the authors involved.

This practice can also lead to civil law suits against PetersNet and those who are associated with it. Because of the potential danger of being implicated by association, webmasters who have a link to PetersNet are urged to remove such a link. This will make it clear that:

(1) they are not associated with PetersNet;

(2) they will not be dragged into personal civil lawsuits against PetersNet if such should rise;

(3) They do not support international copyright infringements.

Based on the aforementioned comments under "Accountability," whereas PetersNet is accountable to Petersnet only, and that it totally disregards the authority of the local Bishop under who's jurisdiction the various websites fall under, it is obvious that PetersNet displays no respect for the relevant Canon Laws and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

Contrary to what PetersNet may imply by its work or its graphics, it is not a legitimate Catholic Church appointed censoring body that has authority over the faithful, local priests and/or religious orders.

PetersNet has no jurisdiction whatsoever in its practices. In fact, had PetersNet received any kind of international jurisdiction by the Holy See, it would not be permitted to administer its service as it presently does because of the many deficiencies in it. Some of these deficiencies are:

1) The Catholic Church does not dictate to the faithful what they should do;

2) The Catholic Church is diplomatic in its approach to resolving concerns related to the faith. Its approach in the first instance is to do so quietly without seeking to scandalize the faithful.

3) The Catholic Church does not condemn the work of an entire religious institution because of some questionable material. It clearly points out the questionable material and condemns that specific material after having exhausted the aforementioned # 2.

An example of this is the The Mary Page which is the work of the Marianists Fathers at the Marian Library. Because of some of the content in the Marian Library, PetersNet has classified The Mary Page as a "C" under Fidelity. This classification in itself is enough to discourage anyone from visiting that particular website that has excellent material available to the public regarding the Virgin Mary.

PetersNet has even poorly classified Catholic Online because of some of its content. At the same time, Catholic Online is one of the oldest and largest Catholic Internet Ministries that offers a wealth of information to the public.

The question that arises is, "Is it fair to poorly classify a website that offers thousands of webpages of documentation when a dozen or so of its content does not meet the subjective guideline of PetersNet?"

4) As perceived when reviewing the practices of PetersNet, it condemns the major Search Engines and some educational institutions that lists a wealth of Catholic websites. This is because in their opinion, Catholics are unable to discern for themselves what is Catholic and what is not. To resolve this situation, they apply the "dictator" approach.

During the past, the ongoing maintenance of PetersNet has been sporadic. For some time, it did not have the resources to update its database.

PetersNet is organized as a database. As such, it is poorly organized as a user friendly website. It does not provide a complete listing of all the websites that have been evaluated. Unless one knows specifically what he or she is looking for, the service is useless.

1) The administration of PetersNet alleges that when it does an evaluation, especially when there is a lower rating involved, the webmaster of the evaluated website receives a pre-evaluation. This permits the webmaster to provide a rebuttal or to correct the deficiencies of his website prior to having the evaluation released to the public. This practice also permits PetersNet to redo its evaluation when applicable to ensure that the webmaster will receive a favourable description and evaluation of his website.

While this policy is good in words, it does not reflect the practice of PetersNet. In all cases that I have come across, while PetersNet did notify the evaluated Webmaster of an unfavourable evaluation, at the same time, PetersNet had already released it evaluation to the public. In some cases, the webmaster was not even notified of the release of a damaging evaluation. Not only is such a practice unchristian, it is not Catholic. This practice overlooks human error. It echoes the actions of over-zealous dictators who have total disregard for the reputation of others, be they lay-persons or even priests. PetersNet does not practice what it preaches! This seriously places in question the credibility of the those who manage PetersNet!

2) When a webmaster is provided with an unfavourable evaluation that has been released to the public, he/she is advised that once the corrections have been made on the website to meet the specifications of PetersNet, its staff will amend the evaluation. As such, if the changes are done within 24 hours, it will be reflected accordingly on the public evaluation that is provided by PetersNet.

While this policy is good in words, it does not reflect the practice of PetersNet. I am personally aware of a webmaster who has advised PetersNet more than once that its evaluation is inaccurate because the links that are alleged to be on his website, they are not present as alleged. While nearly 2 weeks have elapsed, the administration of PetersNet has done nothing to correct the situation.

In my research of PetersNet, a visitor to a website has revealed to me that when he advised PetersNet of an inaccurate evaluation that stated certain links were present on a website when they were not present, the President of PetersNet responded by saying that the webmaster had been doing changes to his website and he may have removed the links. If such is the case, that the webmaster has removed the links, does this not obligate the President of PetersNet to act responsibly and to see to it that the evaluation is amended to reflect an accurate picture of the website involved? Being reckless and irresponsible in their actions, those who administer PetersNet do not care if the information in their database discredits anyone.

As of the writing of this evaluation, the deception information about the non-existent links remains on the evaluation of that particular website. The President of PetersNet has done nothing to correct the false information in the database.

3) Finally, if PetersNet really feels obligated to evaluate all the Catholic websites in the world, then it also has a Christian obligation to update their database on a regular basis, even weekly, to ensure that each and every website listed on their database will reflect an accurate picture of its content.

While PetersNet has shifted the responsibility to the webmaster to inform them of any changes, in view of the fact that this does not produce any results as mentioned above, then PetersNet should be the one responsible to ensure that their database is updated on a weekly basis and that it reflects an accurate picture of the content of each website. Failure to do so is irresponsible and nothing less than slanderous when webmasters have taken the time to make amendments to their websites and the PetersNet personnel has failed to update its database to reflect such changes.

It is impossible to determine the purpose of PetersNet based on what is known of its work and its inability to provide a professional and credible service with assurance that its database is accurate. It appears that the sole purpose of this work is for the self-glory of those who are involved, this at the detriment of those who's information in PetersNet's database is nothing less than slanderous if inaccurate.

PetersNet does not have a Privacy Statement on its website and it does not provide any assurance of file security.

While reviewing the management of confidential files in the database of PetersNet, it has come to my attention that there is little security. As of the date of this writing, whatever evaluation that may have been started, no matter how inaccurate and slanderous they are, the public can access them prior to being released publicly.

For example, every file in the database of PetersNet contains the following line that ends with a number. http://www.petersnet.net/search/viewsite.cfm?Site=899" To view completed evaluation, the visitors must enter keywords in the PetersNet Search Engine. To view an incomplete evaluation that is not accessible through the Search Engine, the visitor only has the enter the above URL address on their web browser and change the last numbers. For example, if PetersNet shows number 850 as the latest evaluated website, the visitors can review another large number of websites that are being evaluated, their numbers ranging from 851 to 1300+, these evaluations not having yet been released to the public. This clearly demonstrates a poor management of confidential files that can contain harmful material to a webmaster and his website if publicly circulated on the Internet.

The Catholic Canada Search Engine is the largest Canadian Search Engines of Catholic websites.

According to Catholic Canada, on a rating of 1 to 10, 1 being "very poor" and 10 being "excellent," PetersNet is rated at "6." This public opinion does not reflect a high opinion of PetersNet's work on the internet.

For a website like PetersNet that has set itself above the authority of the Catholic Church and local bishops, it should seriously consider reviewing the rating of its own website prior to rating other websites.

This website generates virtually no significant resources and it uses the content of Trinity Communications to give credibility to PetersNet and vice-versa.

Most of the content on PetersNet is from another website. Its database of over 800 websites cannot be viewed as 100% accurate because:

1) Visitors cannot determine which website reflects accuracy and which ones do not;

2) The evaluation of websites provided by PetersNet is subjective and not objective. Because PetersNet discredits websites that do not meet their specifications, Catholics, especially students and researchers, are denied access to endless valuable material that PetersNet has condemned.

Reviewing my source material, while the office of one webmaster has requested more than once from PetersNet the qualifications of its workers, such a question has gone unanswered.

Another email from a Kristina Mirus of PetersNet informed a webmaster that a certain paragraph in a text on his website was non-Catholic and as such, it did not receive the approval of PetersNet. In this particular case, the quoted paragraph was an exact word to word quote from the Holy Bible that Kristina had taken out of context. While she quoted the paragraph, she removed the Bible reference as the end of the paragraph to give more impact to her unprofessional statement.

Unqualified persons like these, whoever they are, possibly the daughter of the President, maybe his wife or even his grandmother, are quick to evaluate what they are not qualified to evaluate. When their qualifications are questioned, the file is passed on to someone else in order to avoid the subject.

While PetersNet may allege that it is highly qualified to perform the duties for which it has set its goals, nobody can possibly be qualified in all the fields that their evaluations demand. In order to be fully qualified, every worker of PetersNet would have to be an educated and experienced expert in Catholic Doctrines, computers, website designing and artwork, etc...

When it comes to artwork, the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I have seen an instance where PetersNet gave a "C" rating to a website that had many visitors who had signed the Guest Book of the website and gave the webmaster a "A+" for the fantastic work that he did on his website. Obviously the subjective (personal) opinion of the individuals at PetersNet does not necessarily correspond with the public opinion of the visitors. Since this area does not appear to be part of the expertise of PetersNet's personnel, it would be better that they discontinue their practice of assessing the appearance of websites.

Computers was previous mentioned as an area of expertise. The reason for this is because when reviewing some of my source material, I learned that in one instance, PetersNet had provided an evaluation of a website that was one week outdated. When the webmaster advised PetersNet that the evaluation did not reflect the true content of the website because changes had been done to it a week earlier and the material referred to (human error) had been amended, the excuse that PetersNet used was that its evaluation was based on the computer cache. In other words, PetersNet visits a website at which time the computer cache makes a copy of what is viewed. Then PetersNet reviews this material off the Internet, in a week, a month or maybe six month later, when time permits. Without updating its files prior to releasing an evaluation, PetersNet then provides the public with an outdated evaluation of a particular website. In other words, the worker did all the work for nothing and did not use common sense that says one should revisit the website prior to releasing an evaluation to ensure that the evaluation properly reflects the content of the website. This certainly reflects gross incompetence!

Conclusion

It has become clear that PetersNet is engaged in a reckless and irresponsible behaviour, its actual practices clearly opposing its alleged policies regarding the processing of information into its database.

PetersNet is an instrument of division within the Catholic Church, confusing the faithful with an inaccurate database that determines what webmasters of websites are worthy of being considered as faithful Catholics and which ones are not.

The danger of this site lies in the fact that by its content and graphics, it explicitly claims to be 100% Catholic and in union with the Magisterium of the Church while clearly operating in non-Catholic ways by disrespecting the Vatican and local Church authorities. All Catholics should be very wary of this site.