For thoughts like this:
I don’t read most Catholic blogs for the same reason I don’t watch TV: because I find a culture of carping, snitching, and gossip inherently un-Christlike. As you know, I don’t tend to weigh in on Church scandals (partly because I usually don’t even know of them); global disasters; who, in the Catholic world or elsewhere, is doing or saying what.
953 comments from people with nothing better to do on a glorious spring day than sit in front of their computer screens and insult each other is not what I have ever been after. I am after, among other thing, shadows, random leaves on sidewalks, tarantulas, orchids, Etta James, The Queers, dinner parties, the long, slow death of my mother, and drunks.
I also quickly discerned what kind of comments I would host: those that reflect fellow feeling; fresh insights; a sense of humor (always welcome), or courteous, well thought-out dissension. I will not host comments that are insulting, rude, or doctrinally wrong. In a post that is clearly from goodwill and a searching heart, a commenter who zeroes in on a tangential, not-in-discussion point is doctrinally wrong, because Catholicism is not stupid. An insulting comment is doctrinally wrong because the doctrine of Christ is love. A comment that is rude, threatening and anonymous is doctrinally wrong because the doctrine of Christ is courage.
Insults and rudeness drive traffic–thus I have foregone that kind of traffic.
Read it all. And: have you checked out Heather’s blog, “Shirt of Flame”?
Just do it. You’re welcome.