Sorry everyone, I couldn’t make it to the Flame in time today on Parliament Hill.  Will make it up at the Voris event which you’re all coming to on May 24, right?

We’ll go out for a brewskie afterwards with Michael and celebrate putting the boot to social justice in the Church.

Deborah Gyapong has suggested that Pro-Life Bloggers meet up after the March starts, but I don’t think I can do that with kids and all.

I’ll be arriving at Parliament Hill around Noon with my family and some family friends.  But I would like to say hello to any fellow bloggers and Socon or Bust readers at the Centennial Flame, say between 12:15-12:30PM.

I think this is a great idea. Let’s make it an annual event!

Maybe we can pay a visit to the CBC’s truck at the March and express our collective blogger “concern” over their coverage of prior years.

Relations between Catholic bloggers and Church officials have at times been quite strained as the new media has developed in the last couple years. Some prelates, clergy, and chancery officials have expressed strong reservations about the Catholic blogosphere, with some even speaking quite derogatorily.

Church leaders have been angered by the penchant of many bloggers to call them out on their failures to expound and defend controversial Catholic teachings on moral issues like contraception, homosexuality, and abortion.

The difficulties got to the point that last year the Vatican convened a special conference for bloggers to try to build bridges and learn more about this new method for advancing the Gospel.

But now even the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is saying Catholic bloggers have a “critical role” in defending the Church.

In a new statement on religious freedom released today they write:

The Catholic Church in America is blessed with an immense number of writers, producers, artists, publishers, filmmakers, and bloggers employing all the means of communications—both old and new media—to expound and teach the faith. They too have a critical role in this great struggle for religious liberty. We call upon them to use their skills and talents in defense of our first freedom. (Source)

I’m all for co-operation on a case-by-case basis. Religious liberty is a no-brainer.  The question is not Blogger orthodoxy, but rather how serious the Bishops are about fighting Obama.  Is it all just talk or are they going to call Obama’s Bluff and shut down the hospitals?  Bloggers are willing to mix it up with the culture, and co-operate with the leadership of the U.S. Bishops, if they’re not just blowing smoke.  God help them if they yank the carpet from our feet and don’t follow through, though, once they start the train rolling.

Just a little warning to my fellow bloggers:  don’t get too cozy with the Bishops or else you lose your relevance and moral authority. Co-operation is on a “contract”, case-by-case basis.  The Catholic world has shifted because of the Catholic Blogosphere and Catholic New Media and that’s no embelishment, either.   We need to circle the wagons when the necessity arises, but we need to break up the wagons when the Bishops aren’t doing their jobs.

There’s no blogger blank cheque for the bishops.  There’s a very low limit on the credit card that they should be permitted to draw from.

Let’s not forget who put us in this mess, in the first place.

Moscow, March 26, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia advises Orthodox bloggers to direct their “enhanced energy” to real work.

“It’s enough to follow the discussions in blogs of believers, both laity and clerics. After reading them, you often think: “if to use this energy for good purposes!” the Patriarch said at a session of the Coordination Committee on Promoting Social, Educative, Cultural and other Initiatives under Auspices of the Russian Church.

He asked a question to the participants in these Internet discussions: “You speak very decisively – but what are your real work and your real deeds? What are your practical actions?”

“I don’t underestimate importance and need of deep, serious discussion among Orthodox believers, but I want to remind to its every participant, that the Savior speaks directly to you: “By their fruits you will know them.” By their fruit, not by their chats, jokes, desire to look strong, clever, convincing, biting and so on,” the Primate stressed. (Source)

It’s true…unless you are using the blog to effect meaningful change.

A shout-out to all the bloggers listed on the “Society’s” page….

You are all welcome to come out to hear Michael Voris on May 24 here in Ottawa.

We might go out for a pint afterwards and shoot the S. 

Who knows? Could be the start of a wonderful romance.

 
Here. 

Story about it here.

Excerpt:

“These blogs were not narrowly political, angry or philistine,” he said in an email interview. “They were well-written, by people who seemed to be alive in their faith, in their families, in their priestly and religious vocations.”

Narrow. Check.

Political. Check.

Angry. Checkerona.

Philistine.  Checkmate.

This explains why I didn’t make the cut.

As I mentioned earlier during the month, Socon or Bust is folding up the tent.

The scheduled departure date is scheduled for Fri. Dec.23, 2011.

I’d like to offer a few clarifications, thoughts, and details about our imminent departure from the blogosphere. Read the rest of this entry »

#2.  Not bad.

I’m so glad the stereotype sticks.

Easy as….

1.  Boston Catholic Parish Hosting Gay Pride Mass

2. 

Navigation Path

3. Cancelled Mass outrages gays

Check this out.  Pay particular attention to the 8 minute and 15 minute marks.

Just what precisely makes Salt + Light think that it has any more credibility than an average blogger?  The expensive cameras?  The TV studio?  The budget?  I get a kick out of the establishment media trying to analyze the blogosphere, and then telegraph how readers should be more discerning about bloggers’ claims. Of course, for them, they don’t have to play by the same rules as we do because, you know, they have this aura of “officiality” about them, so anything they say kind of goes….It’s not like big media stars have not fallen in recent years, is it?

It is to laugh.

The reality, however, is something quite different. The messy truth of the matter is that the Consensus Catholic Lapdog Press has a lot going AGAINST THEM even before they say a single word….

#1 – Their reporters are stringently muzzled on what they can and can’t say.  They follow their superiors’ orders on what stories to cover and what stories they should cover-up.

#2 – Their reporters are financially beholden to the sexual orientation of their organization’s financiers because they’re on the payroll.

#3 – Their reporters are subject to the bizarre imbalances of their CEO priest who has a penchant for wild rantings against the pro-life movement, suspicions about the traditional liturgy, and a more-than-mild paranoia with basement bloggers.

What these fellows in suits just don’t get is that credibility is earned by reporting the facts, holding firm to the Faith once delivered to the Saints, being transparent during controversies, and being tenacious about cover-ups.  And, above all, having a love for the truth.   The fact that the Catholic media is in crisis right now is largely because they don’t do these things.   

At the 8 minute mark of their segment on Catholic blogs, Salt + Light producer, Kris Dmytrenko, claims that traditional publications like The Catholic Register offer a more balanced view of Catholic opinion because they have such a diverse cacauphony of voices, whereas Catholic blogs which may have only 1 or 2 bloggers can lead to a “ghettoization” because of an obstensibly narrower world view. 

This argument, of course, is completely vacuous. Read the rest of this entry »

…Archbishop Celli contended that Catholic media should be at the service of the culture. He explained that media should know how to enter “in this search that man embarks upon every day […] as instruments of this ‘diaconia’ of the culture […] instruments that teach what it means to dialogue, to be men who respect others’ positions, who know how to welcome, who know how to understand.” “I emphasize it again,” Archbishop Celli stated, “We are not seeking a religious fundamentalism, because sometimes this is the risk. And the Church itself is not that; it is not a ‘tower of marble’” that proudly stands “in its possession of the truth”, but rather a Church that knows how to welcome, understand, dialogue, respect.”…(Source)

So Archbishop Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, and no doubt a really good friend of Fr. Rosica, thinks that there is a “risk” of sounding a little too triumphalistic in our “fundamentalism”.  It sure sounds like he’s right in line with his friend in the wabbly fromage camp and against the “rigidity” of the Catholic blogosphere:  

“We have a right and a duty… to take objection with these young people (including young professors), who, through their theology courses and rigid beliefs, wish to move the Ecumenical movement back to a time it knew no possibilities for growth”… The next step is to work on “twinning” churches, where churches begin to do some real sharing and experimenting with liturgies.”

It’s all part of the “welcoming and understanding, sweaty-palm, back-slapping, good times” church. 

Oooops.  (That’s what the bean counters in the corporate accounting world used to call a ”CLM” when I was a young whipper-snapper.  CLM = “career limiting move”.)

Tower of marble and possessing the truth? 

What’s wrong with that?  Why can’t it be both welcoming and triumphalistic? In fact, it is both.  It’s not either/or.  That’s a protestant invention, not worthy of Catholic sensibilities.  Open your minds and your hearts, dear fathers!  The reality is that the early Christians were not shy about welcoming people into the Faith, but they were not skimpy on being “triumphalistic” about Jesus or the Church, either.  In fact, St. Paul had other ideas about “pillars and truth”:

But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. – 1 Tim 3:15

Now, I don’t want to make too big a deal over Archbishop Celli’s comments which are, let’s face it, a dig against us triumphalists.  After all, he “emphasizes” how we should  learn how to “welcome” and “understand”.  All is cloaked in soft and gentle words.  Who can be against welcoming and understanding and stroking and swooning?  It’s like being against “human rights” or “social justice”.  Who could possibly be against that? /end sarcasm

What should have happened at this blogger conference is someone should have taken on Archbishop Celli and probed him a bit to find out exactly what he meant by his words in that article.  But instead, we find some of these bloggers forgetting one of the reasons for their existence is to decline the Professional Catholic-grade Koolaid which is served to them and instead boldly ask for the real wine. 

There’s nothing really worse in this gig than institutional, Katholic Koolaid bloggers who have traded in their discernment for a seat at the velvet table.  As soon as the Catholic blogosphere gives the Vatican bureaucracy and CanChurch a pass and effectively joins the rest of the Catholic lapdog press, that’s the moment we cease to be who we are and what we are for.  We will have lost our relevance.  Our independence, orthodoxy, and ability to call out the corruption is THE CENTRAL CORE FEATURE which makes us so needed and dangerous. 

Once the Professional Catholics put a condom on bloggers, our blogging intercourse is no longer dangerous.  It becomes safe and sterile.  And when it becomes safe and sterile, blogdom is dead….just like those who practiced “safe sex” are dead.

…From their side of the table, Church officials are deeply wary of an interactive, lightening-speed media that seems to have no boundaries, rules or limitations. A major theme, put forward by Fr. Frederico Lombardi of the Vatican Press Office and American institutional blogger Elizabeth Scalia, continues to be the supposed “lack of charity” shown by bloggers who reveal the failings of Churchmen.  It was clear, however, that these officials were aware of the problems and genuinely wanted to begin a new, less mutually suspicious relationship. And the bloggers responded eagerly to the extended hand…. (Source)

The more I read this, the more I am less and less impressed with how this whole “lack of charity” theme was pushed.  Fr. Lombardi was pushing it. So was Archbishop Claudio Celli.  And also Elizabeth Scalia, from the Anchoress.   I would really like to know why she even brought up the topic.  Was it something she thought would be a good topic to discuss, or was the topic suggested to her by Fr. Lombardi or Cardinal Celli?

The topic in and of itself is fine and legitimate, of course. But it’s the political mileage gained for those who use it to silence or dumb down legitimate criticism of their actions which concerns me.  Why wasn’t there a time to discuss how the blogosphere can be used to root out corruption in the Church?  Or how to use it to mobilize lay Catholics against liberals and heretics?  I guess that didn’t get on the agenda.

…Elizabeth Scalia, who writes “The Anchoress,” said that while the mainstream media tend to view blogs as “little more than a means of self-promotion,” the Catholic blogs generally are real sources of “Catholic clarity.”

But bloggers can’t claim to be purveyors of clarity unless they do so with charity, she said.

“Charity is one of the biggest challenges we face,” she said, because “freedom is both a gift and a source of temptation for our egos.” (Source)

Why does “charity” get such a high place in these discussions?  What about the truth and the cover-ups in CanChurch? How come that’s not discussed? 

Please!  Have some regard for the truth about the baby-murdering enablers that are on the dole in the Catholic Church. That’s what we should be talking about, not some stupid, diversionary tactics like good manners.  They should listen to Pio, instead:

“I beg you not to criticize me by invoking charity, because the greatest charity is to deliver souls held fast by Satan in order to win them over to Christ.” – Saint Padre Pio

Besides, we wouldn’t be having issues with “charity”, if some of the members of the Council who hosted this conference actually practiced it themselves.

Hypocrisy doesn’t sell in the blogosphere.