August 2006

Russell Shaw on the blogosphere:

…Catholics bloggers are having an impact, though one admittedly not measurable by election results.

That’s not entirely good or entirely bad, but a mix of both. On the one hand, blogging is a potent tool for expressing the responsible public opinion in the Church that’s been endorsed at the highest levels from Pope Pius XII to Pope John Paul II.

If anyone thinks public opinion doesn’t belong in the Catholic Church, he or she will find the papal magisterium on the other side of the argument. As a matter of fact, in the last major document of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II echoed Pope Pius in declaring that if public opinion were absent from Catholic life, "something would be missing from the life of the Church."

On the other hand, no one even slightly familiar with the blogosphere can help being aware that it’s the kingdom of the gossips, the ideologues, the cranks and the no-holds-barred venters of spleen — a place in cyberspace where opinion, rumor, ad hominem nastiness and unfettered ego-tripping are par for the course.

Web logs are an extraordinary medium for the instantaneous exchange of views and information among activists. Their speed, outreach and unofficial character give them their influence. But the blogs lack the checks and balances of traditional journalism and manifest a kind of congenital unreliability. Like great spinners of yarns, bloggers tell fascinating tales that sometimes even turn out to be true. But the best rule of thumb when consulting a blog is: reader, beware.

My guess is that the longterm positive influence of blogs in the Catholic sector will be to hasten the breakdown of walls of bureaucratic concealment and encourage a significant opening-up in governance and administration — and communication — as a measure of enlightened accommodation to changing times.

If so, that will be consistent with something the Vatican said several years ago in a document on the Church and the Internet. It spoke of new media — now including blogs — as potentially effective means of "realizing in a concrete manner" the Church’s fundamental nature as a community of faith.

Not surprisingly blogs are just like people, being that they are written by people. Whatever faults we can find in people we can certainly find in the blogosphere.

Though I think the caveat of "reader beware" applies to all forms of communication. The vaunted checks and balances of the Main Stream Media are largely exaggerated. A biased editor is color blind when checking biased reporting that conforms to their own biases. Each week we are treated to major blunders in the press that if corrected appear not on the front page, but buried somewhere else. When stories are misreported I usually find out about them via the same blogs that reported them in the first place.

The major mistake most writers make when talking about the blogosphere is writing about it as if it was some cohesive whole. Just as in the print media there are vehicles such as the NYT, the Post, Village Voice, Gossip magazines, Tabloids, Community papers, etc. Blogs have added many other categories that sometimes adhere to other models such as straight journalism or other variants such as diarists and linkers. Great "spinners of yarns" that sometimes tell stories actually true is just as applicable to the MSM with its Jayson Blair’s or the MSM as a whole when it came to the deplorable coverage of Hurricane Katrina that largely turned out to be mythical.

A healthy skepticism is important when evaluating all sources. Blogs generally don’t have a normal editor, but I know from my own experience that I have plenty of editors also known as readers. Besides helping out my grammar and spelling there are plenty of unpaid fact checkers out there willing to give correction when I have written in error.

Now I am not dumping on Russell Shaw who I really do like as a writer. What he writes in this article contains good analysis of what types of effects the Catholic blogosphere has and can achieve. It just annoys me seeing once again a comparison of the blogosphere to traditional journalism and its supposed checks and balances.

On Dom’s site:

Via Kathy Shaidle comes a thoughtful article from Libertas, a forum for conservative thought on film, regarding Hollywood celebrities in light of Mel Gibson’s recent troubles.

Although Gibson clearly used the conservative media to promote a product of his, Gibson’s politics remain vague. Basically Gibson appears to be an idiosyncratically devout Catholic whose agenda crossed paths with religious conservatives when his film came out, and also when Gibson lobbied against stem-cell research. Otherwise, it isn’t clear to me how the mythology of Mel Gibson as political conservative began. In fact, these days I’m sensing the opposite may be true: Gibson may be a left-wing Catholic much like … Michael Moore.

… And this, perhaps is the most vital point I have to make to fellow conservatives: get over this guy. Stop treating Hollywood Celebrities as anything more than they are: Hollywood Celebrities. And what is a Hollywood Celebrity? For the most part they’re bizarre, indulged, completely self-absorbed people who do not live in the world the rest of us live in.

… The problem is that the allegiances of Hollywood Celebrities are determined by who is going to give them $20 million paychecks, and little else. More than liberalism or (in the very rare case) conservatism, the ideology of Hollywood Celebrities is: narcissism.

I’ve written about it before. I’m always amazed at how some orthodox and conservative Catholics go all weak in the knees whenever they think that some Hollywood celebrity might be a closet Catholic or a closet political conservative or agree with their point of view in some way. Who cares? Why must we get our validation from people whose job it is to prance about the stage and play at imagination. There’s nothing with that if it’s your profession, but that’s the point. It’s just a job, not membership in an American aristocracy that automatically makes the anointed celebrity an expert in everything he or she has an opinion about.

The cult of celebrity is just a further sign of sickness in our society. There has been wall to wall media coverage of Mad Mel’s anti-Semetic rant that is not proportional to other stories.

Naveed Afzal Haq who killed one Jewish woman and injured five others including a pregnant woman and yet Google News shows 1,110 stories for Haq and 4,830 for Mel Gibson. As despicable as Mel’s comments were they don’t rise up to the type of hatred that plans and then carries out actual shooting of Jewish people.

As far as Mel Gibson’s situation itself goes I will defer to what Mark Shea has written on the subject since he says it much better than I can.

PATRICK SWAYZE has blasted movies like THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST and THE DA VINCI CODE for giving religion a cynical slant. The DIRTY DANCING star, who has a keen interest in spirituality, fears controversial films will leave the world with no religion or faith to turn to. He says, "I believe in a higher power. I’ve studied Eastern philosophies, and I’ve studied the Koran. We’ve devalued everything worth believing in. Now we’re tearing into religion. "A line should be drawn. The Last Temptation of Christ. And The Da Vinci Code borders on that. "I was glued to the book, but afterwards I thought, ‘Oh my Lord. Now we’re tearing into God and our faith.’ Are we going to be turning into a reality show too? I certainly hope not."

Patrick was raised Catholic, but seems to be into the healing power of crystals and Buddhism, so unfortunately his saying "our faith" doesn’t have much of a dividing line.

Twelve women from throughout the United States lie prostate before the altar while participating in a ceremony Monday, July 31, 2006, in which eight will proclaim themselves priests and four deacons in Pittsburgh. The ceremony won’t be recognized by the Catholic church, which has a 2,000-year tradition of an all-male priesthood. Similar ceremonies conducted by the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests have been held before in other countries, and most of the participants have been excommunicated. It’s the first time the group is holding a ceremony in the U.S. The ceremony took place on a riverboat cruise of the three rivers in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Well the AP caption is dead on when they say they will "proclaim themselves priests", because that is exactly what happened. Let us pray for these women who have truly left the Bark of Peter for a false ordination on a boat that does dinner cruises. In fact Peter’s Bark is not worse and it’s right.

This sham was performed by three German women "bishops". Which I find rather ironic. True ordinations are done by three bishops so as to ensure there is no doubt in reference to Apostolic succession and that a valid ordination occurred. The Trinitarian sign of it of course is also a factor, which is of course why the want to move away from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Again keep these women in your prayers so that they might see that obedience and love of the Church is the true path. That serving Christ is through humility and not seeking what you perceive as inequity of power. That they grow to understand that Christ choosing only men to be apostles is no more a slight than Jesus choosing only women to be mothers. That we all have are role in the Body of Christ and we can all call dibs on being the same part.

One note is that I think we should dispense with disparaging the physical appearance of these women who seek ordination. Let us rightly criticize their actions, their attitudes, and their disobedience. Let us hold high the truth with charity.

Update: A reader noticed that the AP story accidentally used prostate instead of prostrate. Pretty funny considering that only males have a prostate gland. I guess the next step if for these women to demand that they be given male organs also to ensure equity and inclusion.