Against The Grain

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

The Revealer, published by the Dept. of Journalism and Center for Religion and Media at NYU, has responded to Rachel Linner's Commonweal article with a list of their own Guide to Erudite, Prudent, or (at the very least), Intelligent Catholic blogs. (It's pretty meager and you're invited to contribute your own recommendations).

Contrary to Ms. Linner's impression, I've always thought "St. Blog's" a pretty ideologically and religiously diverse bunch, ranging from the "two-fisted conservative" Mark Shea to self-proclaimed "liberal Catholic" Jcecil3 to Peter Nixon, commmended for being "above the fray."

I would think that anybody searching for webring would consider us a pretty broad online sample of Catholics in the United States . . .

But leave it to commentator Sulpicius Severus to denounce the whole lot of us as "modernists."

Update:

Sulpicius further castigates St. Blogs for wasting time blogging, proclaiming:
"Traditional Catholics have a sizeable internet presence, but not as many "blogs", because true Catholics are too busy with the important work of saving souls (building new churches, defending the True Sacraments, living true Catholic lives in a hostile world) to piddle around with prideful, ephemeral self-publishing software.

I found this rather amusing, noting that Sulpicius -- or one of his colleagues -- has spent some time himself piddling around with prideful, ephemeral self-publishing software.
Meanwhile, there is an interesting discussion on Amy Welborn's blog in response to Mr. Sharlet's musing:
Does the mostly conservative St. Blog's Parish present a bigger challenge to Church hierarchy than lay people's democracy movement? How come progressive Catholics tend to meet in Church basements while conservative Catholics gather in the blogosphere? What will happen if -- when -- these lay-people movements converge?"
Need I mention that St. Blog's now has its own Parish Hall?