The novena asks that Jacinda Ardern and her advisors, Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins, Andrew Little and Dr Ashley Bloomfield "always seek the ways of righteousness, justice and mercy and to lead the country with honesty and integrity".

The novena then asks people to pray the Our Father and Hail Mary.

A novena is an ancient devotional prayer tradition repeated over a period of nine days or in some cases nine weeks, and CathNews was sent a copy asking if it had anything to do with the email's circulation.

The correspondent wondered if CathNews might have sold its email list.

He explained that he contacted CathNews because of Netsafe's advice to be vigilant of possible email scams and wondered if the novena email might be an example.

"It is not something I signed up for, I don't want it and I don't know how to unsubscribe", another correspondent said.

"I'm not opposed to praying for all our leaders and do so regularly. Why did I receive it?"

Yet another phoned wanting to know how to get off the list.

He said he admired their devotion but did not know the person who sent the email, there is no group affiliation and most importantly there is no public way of unsubscribing.

"I didn't sign up for it in the first place!", he said.

Speaking on behalf of the publisher, Fr John Murphy SM said CathNews has not sold nor given its email list to anyone.

"People give us their email address for a particular purpose and we respect that", he said.

Murphy says CathNews has a reasonable number on its email list and periodically has been asked if others could have it, or if we could send emails on their behalf, but the answer is always 'no'.

From what he has seen of the email and the email's header, of itself, he does not think it is a scam.

"Communications is the Church's 'bread and butter' and it's a bit disappointing, albeit well-intentioned individuals and organisations are not using proper email protocols and email list providers to manage group email sent to interested participants", he said.

A quick search for email list providers shows a good number have a free tier for smaller volume senders and charitable rates for larger organisations.

As well as giving people the option to manage their involvement, using an email list provider is the right thing to do, a way of letting people know a little more about the sender and gives recipients a way to opt-in and opt-out.

Netsafe has seen a 24 percent increase in harmful digital communication reports, according to data released in the leadup to the organisation's online safety week.

But when they concern hate speech or bullying and harassment that occurs both offline and digitally, they often don't fit under the Harmful Digital Communications Act, chief executive Martin Cocker said.

Netsafe is the first port of call for people looking at court action, such as getting a takedown order, to see if a solution can be found. Read more

It has seen a 24 percent increase in harmful digital communication reports, according to data released in the leadup to the organisation's online safety week.

But when they concern hate speech or bullying and harassment that occurs both offline and digitally, they often don't fit under the Harmful Digital Communications Act, chief executive Martin Cocker said. Read more

Stuff reports, 11 November, that the scammer created a similar email address to Timaru Presbyterian minister, Reverend Rory Grant (pictured) and asked recipients to buy gift vouchers for a non-existent cancer patient.

Grant discovered the scam when his office phoned asking about an unusual email they had received from him!

Those who only had a quick look at the email address may have thought it was legitimate because the scammer used an email address similar to Grant's real email address.

Grant is unsure how many people received the scam email but was certain the parish website had not been hacked and all the accounts were secure.

Stuff reports the fake emails were personalised and written in English using correct grammar and without spelling errors.

They told the recipient Grant was in a meeting but needed Steam Wallet gift cards which he promised to a cancer patient for their birthday and that Grant would reimburse them.

Grant doubts people will have been duped by it but has reported the incident to the national office of the New Zealand Presbyterian Church.

He also placed a warning notice of the scam on the parish website.

Grant's is not the only Church email address to be scammed and a New Zealand Police spokesperson said cyberattacks were becoming increasingly more common and in varying forms.

"Don't believe everything you read make sure it comes from a reliable source," the spokesperson said.

An independent security advisor told CathNews that if an email seems out of the blue or is too good to be true, be very careful, do not click a link in the email, do not open an attachment and never reply to an unsolicited or untrusted sender.

She says these sorts of messages ought be forwarded to the Department of Internal Affairs via their website: www.reportspam.co.nz.

Netsafe, New Zealand's independent, non-profit online safety organisation is urging people to be extra vigilant at the moment during COVID-19 as scammers look to be extra creative and lure people in and engage with them.

The online safety organisation advises that a person contacting makes contact saying they are from a legitimate organisation and you're not sure, contact the organisation using the organisation's official website and not the one provided in the email.

Sources

• Stuff
• Netsafe

Boyle said cyber-bullying is even more insidious because the younger generation is on the whole far more adept in their use of technology than parents or St Bede's college staff.

Imploring parents to keep an eye on how their sons are using technology, Boyle said parents are welcome to contact the St Bede's guidance counsellor if they had a concern they cannot address.

Boyle promised to keep parents informed of a programme to address the issue proactively.

The programme is being designed by the College guidance counsellor and some senior students.

The incident involved a 14 year old student being held over a bin by three pupils, while a fourth took a photo and uploaded it to Facebook.

Boyle said the victim was not physically injured and is coping well.

The incident happened in the last week of last term and came to light only through an anonymous "survey" the school periodically ran to give students the opportunity to report inappropriate behaviour.

In St Bede's latest newsletter, Boyle said the school was working hard to tackle the problem, and he has told parents that if the school community chooses to ignore cyber-bullying it does so at its own peril, reports Stuff.

"I'd implore parents to keep an eye on how your son is using technology and if you have concerns you feel you cannot address, contact the college," he wrote.

NetSafe, an independent organisation promoting cybersafety, reported in 2007 that one in five New Zealand high school students have been cyber-bullied.

"Everyone has the power to do this in their hands yet most are choosing to exercise this power responsibly," Martin Cocker executive director of NetSafe said.

The St Bede's incident comes amid a push for a law change to address cyber-bullying. Under government proposals, aimed at protecting victims of online bullying, cyber-bullies could be jailed for up to three years.

Boyle said the cyber-bullies' behaviour "hasn't come to my attention before this, that's why they were given a second chance."

Sources

• Stuff
• St Bede's College Newsletter (PDF)
• Daily Mail

However, it is important for parents "not to overreact, to try to calm down a little bit, and not let fear get in the way of reasoning. This after all is their future - we are never going to go back to the 1950s ... so parents have to find that balance, "Stephen Balkam says.

He says a study in the USA has found large differences between what parents know about their teens' social networking use on sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, and the level of monitoring their children knew of.

It found 70 per cent of parents checked their teens' text messages on their phones but 70 per cent of teens were unaware of it, and while about 84 per cent of parents said they monitored online usage, just 39 per cent of teens were aware they were being spied on.

Just 14 per cent of teens thought their parents were well informed about what they were doing on Twitter and while 95 per cent of teens reported feeling safe online, 94 per cent of parents disagreed with them.

Source

• The New Zealand Herald
• Image: 3News

The gist of the story is: Karen Klein, a 68 year old school bus monitor from New York State was verbally bullied by four teenage boys, who filmed it on a cell phone and posted it online. The 10 minute film went viral, with the clip on YouTube receiving millions of hits in a matter of days.

The boys have been excluded from their school for a year, banned from school buses for the same period, and ‘sentenced' to fifty hours community service with the elderly. For the next year, the boys will have to enter alternative education programmes.

The story has created polarised responses. A Canadian man, himself a victim of bullying as a child, saw the video on YouTube and set up an online campaign, aiming to raise $5000 to send Klein ‘on the vacation of a lifetime'. The running total is now at $670,000 ($836,000 NZ). Corporations are getting in on the game, falling over themselves to offer Klein free flights and holidays.

The other responses have been less altruistic. The boys' actions have created a huge backlash. One boy reportedly received 1000 threatening text messages in one night. Strangers have been sending abusive messages to them online and, according to the father of one of the boys, his family has been receiving death threats.

And here we return to our question of justice.

Can money really help, when you've been hurt and humiliated so publicly? Can such misery be eased by having the Walt Disney corporation offer you a free holiday? Can sending a death threat to the children and their families make it better, in a grotesquely modern version of ‘eye for an eye' retribution? Commenting on the harassment of the boys, Klein herself said, "That's not the way to go about things. They're just kids."

Klein received letters of apology from each of the boys, and initially refused to accept them. The cynical part of me wonders whether the boys regret their actions because of the public outcry, or because they genuinely understand that what they did was demeaning, nasty and dehumanising? Would they have come to that conclusion themselves, if the film had not gone viral?

Nobody seems to have suggested a restorative justice model of reconciliation - for them all to sit around a table and talk about it, giving Klein space to express the impact on her life and for those boys to sit face to face with her and apologise.

I am sure that the lives of the protagonists will never be the same again. While I abhor their actions, I have compassion for the way the boys have been ostracised and demonised. This incident will follow them for years. Sadly, this sort of bullying happens every day, and the actions of these boys are not unusual. It leads us to the big question of how this sort of bullying became such a normalised part of teenage life, and what can be done to tackle it? While there's no easy answer, it's good to know that excellent organisations on our own shores such as Netsafe are striving to do just that.

Anna Field is a youth worker based in Auckland. Originally from the UK, she has been in New Zealand since 2010.