Cleansing Fire

Defending Truth and Tradition in the Roman Catholic Church

US Bishops: Bloggers play ‘critical role’ in defending Church. Fr. Z makes a proposal.

April 15th, 2012, Promulgated by b a

I am “picking up and renewing” FrZ’s proposal here.  The full article US Bishops: Bloggers play ‘critical role’ in defending Church is definitely worth the read.

When the Obama Administration began to attack the 1st Amendment, Catholic bloggers rose up.

When the U.S. Bishops called for rallies for religious freedom, Catholic bloggers posted links and dates and places.

When the USCCB and Card. Dolan and Bp. Lori made statements or gave interviews, Catholic bloggers spread the word.

Catholic bloggers are to the establishment and the dissident Catholic media what talk radio and cable are to the old time news and entertainment establishment.

The great majority of Catholic bloggers would (and perhaps might have to) go to the wall for the Catholic bishops in a good cause and with good leadership.

Okay, let’s double-down.

I, in turn, call upon the U.S. Bishops to do what the Holy See did: host a conference… call a meeting with bloggers.

I ask fellow Catholic bloggers to pick up and renew this proposal on their own blogs.  Propose that the bishops organize a blogger summit, a blogger confab, a blogger powwow, a blognic on steroids.

Do they mean it, or not?  Are Catholic bloggers valued, or not?  Are these just words?  Vapor?

On a side note, if you follow his link chain you’ll find here where Father Rosica of Salt and Light Television says some pretty nasty stuff about the Catholic Blogosphere:

Father Rosica said a study of Catholic blogs involving non-Catholics and non-Christians looking at Catholic blogs found they were filled with “filth, hate, conjecture, and innuendo.” He added some blogs attempt to claim they are official, using the Vatican crest or a picture of the Pope.

Many of these blogs often have “vitriolic, vindictive messages,” he said, citing the LifeSite News blog as a major culprit.

“The LifeSite blog is not a Catholic blog. It is not an authoritative blog,” he said. “It has caused huge problems in the North American church, not just in Canada.”

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6 Responses to “US Bishops: Bloggers play ‘critical role’ in defending Church. Fr. Z makes a proposal.”

  1. Raymond F. Rice says:

    I think Father Rosica is implying that some blogs can become on-line “cults” and take on very negative characterisics.

  2. Raymond F. Rice says:

    A blog is a fairly neutral means of communication. It is all in how it is used by others and the tone and focus dermined by the blogmaster(s) aand what they will allow. The main focus for a Catholic blog should be to promote the Love of God in all three Persons.

    St Francis de Sales:”more people can be converted by a drop of honey than by a jug of vinegar” or something to that effect.

  3. Hopefull says:

    This is the sentence I find troubling:

    “Father Rosica said a study of Catholic blogs involving non-Catholics and non-Christians looking at Catholic blogs found they were filled with “filth, hate, conjecture, and innuendo.”

    These are conclusions apparently by non-Catholics and non-Christians. It would not surprise me at all if they felt that certain stating of truth would be offensive to them. For example, Catholic bloggers calling abortion “murder” or homosexual lifestyle “dysfunctional,” or contraception “sinful,” or feminist priestesses as “disobedient,” or the ObamaCare mandate an an attack on freedom of religion may well be offensive language to those mysterious non-Catholic and non-Christian opiners. That is always the risk of speaking the truth. Such conclusions are encouraging. We bloggers must be doing something right!

  4. Scott W. says:

    On the surface Fr. Rosica says some sensible things such as not using the net as a substitute for research (as a former grad TA and husband of a former college prof, I can tell you all about that). But he tips his hand when he says that one the problems is “the destruction of the hierarchy of information“. Well, consider that progressives for decades have pretty much run the show and only a layman with special research skills and resource access could pierce their anesthetic fog. Then the net comes along and suddenly they no longer had control of the narrative and their ideas had to compete in the marketplace of ideas and lo and behold, they disintigrated on contact with orthodox teaching. So yeah, there are problems with blogging, but it has been a net gain for champions of sound doctrine and practice.

  5. Bernie says:

    “Then the net comes along and suddenly they no longer had control of the narrative”
    I think that’s a very good point. CF has had an amazing impact in this diocese. At the very least it has attracted a great deal of attention from ALL over (wink!).

  6. Hopefull says:

    Two major areas of “net” advantage are 1) exposure to what is valid, licit and beautiful, whether EWTN programming, (no liturgical abuse, e.g.), and on-line accessibility to what the Pope said, and to what he “really said,” and 2) availability of information which would have been “managed” with less news flow available so as to be unrecognizable, or distorted for other political purposes.

    One good example can be seen yesterday at http://www.earnedmedia.org/cathl0416.htm about “Religious Rights Campaign Under Fire” regarding Bill Donohue (Catholic League President) and his response to the critics of the USCCB statement on religious liberty.

    Donohue made the point that it is not surprising when Americans United for Separation of Church and State accuses the USCCB of seeking to “maintain their privileged status,” or a left-wing blog says the Catholic Church wants to “impose its public services” on the public, or when a CNN post irrationally questions the right of the bishops to speak for Catholics. But when friendly fire is incurred it is not only unexpected but could easily have been more misleading were it not possible to put the rebuttal of truth into the public arena. One example would be the silliness of the Jesuit magazine America, implying that the bishops should accept Obama’s non-compromise, and now the supposed Catholic media outlet, Commonweal, editorializing that “the bishops’ statement runs the risk of making this into a partisan issue during a presidential election in which the leaders of one party have made outlandish claims about a ‘war on religion’ or a ‘war against the Catholic Church.'” With friends like that, one doesn’t need enemies.

    Without response like that from Earned Media, would we ever know about Commentary, a Jewish publication, which called the USCCB statement “an important document that is neither partisan nor an attempt to inflame sentiments on divisive issues” and which urged Jews to stand with the bishops…..Too bad the Catholics at Commonweal can’t find it within themselves to do likewise.”

    In the last election, the Obama campaign had an organizational advantage through electronic media (much like the terrorists in some mid-east countries using social networking to organize their protests. This upcoming election will sorely test the ability to confront and overcome opinion with truth. And Catholics SHOULD be on the front line of this effort.

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