Terms of Use

These Terms of Use are an agreement between you and the Roman Catholic parish that operates this website (“the Parish,” “we,” “us,” “our”), together with its clergy, staff, catechists, volunteers, and agents.

This site serves the Parish’s Order of Christian Initiation of Adults and its adapted formation for teens (“OCIA,” “OCIT,” or “the Program”).

References in these terms to “the Archdiocese” mean the diocesan authority under which the Parish operates. References to “the wider Church” mean the universal Church and its central governing bodies.

By accessing this site you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the site.

This site exists to support catechesis, scheduling, and records administration for the Program. It is offered as a ministry, without charge, to those preparing for or supporting Christian initiation.

This is a parish ministry site. It is published by the Parish, on the Parish’s own authority, for the Parish’s own program.

• Nothing on this site is an official act, publication, decree, instruction, or communication of the Archdiocese.
• Nothing on this site is an official act, publication, teaching document, or communication of the wider Church.
• The Parish does not act as agent for the Archdiocese or the wider Church in operating this site, and no statement here binds either of them.
• No content here constitutes an authentic interpretation of doctrine, liturgical law, canon law, or archdiocesan policy. Where this site summarises any of those, the summary is a catechetical aid. The underlying official text governs, and this site does not.
• Where a question of doctrine, sacramental validity, canonical status, marriage or annulment, or eligibility for the sacraments arises, the answer comes from the pastor, the Archdiocese, or the competent ecclesiastical authority — not from this site.

If anything on this site conflicts with the official teaching, liturgical books, canon law, or governing policy of the Archdiocese or the wider Church, the official source controls and this site is deemed corrected to conform to it.

Content is prepared in good faith. Schedules change, rites are rescheduled, requirements are revised by the Archdiocese, and clerical errors occur. Nothing on this site is a guarantee that:

• a session will occur as posted;
• a rite or sacrament will be celebrated on a given date;
• a person will be admitted to, or will complete, the Program;
• a document submitted will be found sufficient by the Parish or the Archdiocese;
• a canonical impediment does not exist or has been resolved.

Admission to the sacraments of initiation is a discernment of the Church, exercised by the pastor under the authority of the Archdiocese. It is not conferred, promised, guaranteed, or scheduled by this website, by an account on it, by completion of any online module, or by the appearance of a name on any list.

You agree not to:

1. Access any portal, account, record, or area you are not authorised to access, or attempt to.
2. Use another person’s credentials, or share your own.
3. Scrape, harvest, crawl, index, mirror, or bulk-download any part of this site, including by automated means, except as a general-purpose search engine indexing public pages in the ordinary way.
4. Extract, compile, or republish personal information about participants, catechists, clergy, staff, or volunteers.
5. Use any content, name, image, roster, or contact detail from this site for solicitation, marketing, political campaigning, fundraising, proselytism on behalf of any other body, or any commercial purpose.
6. Upload or transmit malicious code, or probe, scan, or test the security of the site.
7. Impersonate any member of the clergy, staff, catechetical team, or the Parish itself, or falsely represent an affiliation with the Parish, the Archdiocese, or the wider Church.
8. Use the site to harass, threaten, defame, or endanger any person.
9. Post or transmit content that is unlawful, obscene, or sexually explicit; that sexualises a minor in any way; or that would be harmful to a minor.
10. Circumvent any access control, rate limit, or authentication mechanism.
11. Use the site or its content to train, fine-tune, or ground any machine learning or generative model, or to build any dataset for that purpose.
12. Copy, adapt, or redistribute the site’s design, structure, code, or content except as the Copyright Notice permits.

We may suspend or terminate access for any violation, without notice, and may refer conduct that appears criminal to law enforcement.

Links to parish, diocesan, or third-party resources are provided for convenience. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content, availability, or privacy practices. A link is not an endorsement, and it does not make the linked material an act of the Parish, the Archdiocese, or the wider Church.

Do not use this site, its forms, its messaging, or any portal to report an emergency, a threat to life or safety, abuse or neglect, or a mental health crisis. Messages here are not monitored continuously and may not be read for days.

Any emergency

Call 911.

Suspected abuse or neglect of a child

Call 911, and report to the Maryland Department of Human Services or local Child Protective Services. Report separately to the Archdiocese’s child protection office as its policy directs.

Mental health crisis, or thoughts of suicide

Call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Urgent pastoral or sacramental need, including danger of death

Call the parish office directly. [Parish telephone number]

The site is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the site will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free, or that defects will be corrected.

To the fullest extent Maryland law allows, the Parish, the Archdiocese, the wider Church, and their respective clergy, officers, employees, catechists, volunteers, and agents are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost data, lost opportunity, or reputational harm, arising from your use of or inability to use this site — even if advised of the possibility.

Where liability cannot lawfully be excluded, aggregate liability arising from the site is limited to one hundred dollars ($100.00).

Nothing here limits liability for anything that cannot be limited under Maryland law.

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Parish, the Archdiocese, the wider Church, and their clergy, officers, employees, catechists, volunteers, and agents from any claim, loss, liability, or expense, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising from your breach of these terms, your misuse of the site, or your violation of any law or third-party right.

Questions of faith, doctrine, liturgy, sacramental discipline, canonical status, ecclesiastical governance, and the selection, formation, assignment, supervision, or removal of clergy, catechists, sponsors, and ministers are internal matters of the Church. They are governed by canon law and by the internal policy of the Archdiocese, and they are resolved through ecclesiastical processes.

Nothing in these terms submits any such question to civil adjudication, and nothing here waives any constitutional, statutory, or common-law protection available to a religious organisation, including protections under the First Amendment relating to church autonomy and the ministerial exception.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to §1.11, the exclusive venue for any civil dispute is the state or federal courts located in Montgomery County, Maryland, or the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

We may revise these terms at any time. The revised version takes effect when posted, with an updated revision date. Material changes affecting portal users will be notified by email to the address on the account. Continued use after posting is acceptance.

If any provision is held unenforceable, it is severed and the rest remains in force. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. These terms, together with the notices and portal agreements incorporated by reference, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding this site.

[General site contact email] · 2900 Olney Sandy Spring Rd, Olney, MD 20832 · [Parish telephone number]