St. Blog's Mandatum

I have received what I would consider to be the Mandatum of Catholic Orthodoxy in St. Blogs. I have been attacked in an article on St. Blogs in Commonweal. Oh happy day! Now I know I am on the right track.

St. Blog’s has an official proofreader, Nihil Obstat (“Don’t ask for the facts unless you want the truth”) who corrects both grammar and improperly formed Web addresses. There’s a resident humorist, the Curt Jester, whose parody of Amazon.com sells the Patriot Anti-Missalette Battery, “Guaranteed to not allow modern missalettes such as those published by Oregon Catholic Press within a thousand feet of your church...the ultimate in GIRM warfare protection”—General Instruction on the Roman Missal, get it? Not all the Jester’s lines hit their target.

This is just awesome. It looks like out of the whole article the only person she took a pot shot at was me. Perhaps one of the targets I did hit was too close to her for comfort. Kind of like sitting in a submarine set for silent running while depth charges rain down. Well I can hope.

Also notice she feel that she has to explain to the readers of Commonweal what GIRM stands for. Well, maybe she's right. I also enjoyed the "Get it?" the special emphasis to show how lame my humor is. Of course that same Avazon.com parody also drew about 10,000 hits in two days, somebody must "get it."

A special thanks to Domenico Bettinelli for his reaction to this article and his more than kind comments about my humor.

Not surprisingly, there are several blogs by converts. The best of these are reverent with gratitude; most explain (sometimes with an unfortunate didacticism) what led the author to Catholicism.

What in the world does "unfortunate didacticism" mean. What is wrong with converts making "moral observations" about their path to Rome. I guess she must object to the moral part.

Curiously, women religious are absent from St. Blog’s. An absence explained by the conservative bent of many blogs, or just a function of statistics?

Notice her assumption that the women religious are automatically liberal. And how can the blogosphere prevent liberals of any stripe from opining, conservative bent or not? Now if I was going to write an article on St. Blogs, I would look at the blogs listed on the main list maintained by Gerard at praise of glory. From that I would notice that there are at least three blogs of women who are preparing to enter religious life. But I guess since these women are not progressives they don't count as women religious. I would also notice that almost all of the priests that blog are diocesan priests except for Fr. Jeffrey Keyes C.PP.S. The same goes for religious brothers. Could perhaps the lack of access to computers and the time needed for blogging not fit with those living in religious communities? Whatever the answer is I doubt if it is the conservative bent or a function of statistics. Deacons also seem to be absent from St. Blogs. Why no comment on that?

One positive thing about the article is that there is an interesting sampling of Catholic blogs (but no links). Though how can you write a serious article on St. Blogs and not mention Mark Shea, Amy Welborn or the Catholic Blogger who started it all and penned the name St. Blogs; Kathy Shaidle?

The traditionalist blogs are one response to the weakening of Christian certainty—in this case, a negative response—one that often displays a judgmental attitude and a corrosive cynicism about the “secular” world.

This is really funny and ironic since she herself is judging us negatively by saying we have a "corrosive cynicism" and that we are a negative response. She also seemed to be upset that Commonweal was not held up as the standard for St. Blogs. Sorry, most of us are serious Catholics who don't want the watered down Gospel portrayed in Commonweal. But she should be happy that we do not often mention articles from Commonweal. Just think of the words "fisk" and "Dale Price."

She ends with:

I’ll let Flannery O’Connor have the last word: “To have the church be what you want it to be would require the continuous miraculous meddling of God in human affairs, whereas it is our dignity that we are allowed more or less to get on with those graces that come through faith and the sacraments and which work through our human nature….We can’t understand this but we can’t reject it without rejecting life. Human nature is so faulty that it can resist any amount of grace and most of the time it does.” If only she’d had a blog.

If Flannery O'Connor had a blog I really doubt that anyone in Commonweal would be happy about its contents. I also think this is an odd quote for a progressive to use "To have the church be what you want it to be" is the very stamp of progressivism .