{"id":56,"date":"2012-04-16T17:20:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T23:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/04\/groping-for-god-why-and-where-catholics-blog\/"},"modified":"2016-05-02T11:11:18","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T17:11:18","slug":"groping-for-god-why-and-where-catholics-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/04\/groping-for-god-why-and-where-catholics-blog.html","title":{"rendered":"Groping for God: Why and Where Catholics Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he grew exasperated at the sight of the city full of idols. So he debated in the synagogue with the Jews and with the worshipers, and daily in the public square with whoever happened to be there. (Acts 17:16-17)<\/i><\/p>\n

Yesterday the online religion site Patheos<\/a><\/u> debuted a new look. It\u2019s streamlined, consistent, and accessible, and what\u2019s more important, making the transition didn\u2019t appear to overly fry the brains or exhaust the tech skills of anyone involved. Last night on Facebook, Patheos Catholic Channel<\/a><\/u> Editor Elizabeth Scalia, who blogs as The Anchoress<\/a><\/u><\/i>, posted a clip of The Beatles\u2019 \u201cI Feel Fine\u201d as a sigh of relief when announcing the new look. Her post drew mostly favorable comments, but one reader questioned the wisdom of Catholics\u2019 being present on a site that provides equal exposure to all religious and philosophical traditions, including atheism. Doesn\u2019t this smack of collaboration with relativism? And isn\u2019t it irresponsible to participate in forums where Catholics whose hold on the faith is tenuous might be led astray into other, sexier spiritual paths? Shouldn\u2019t there be an official Catholics-only site to which folks could reliably turn for respite from the way the world portrays and assaults us?<\/p>\n

These are good, important questions, and I don\u2019t want my paraphrasing of the commenter to misrepresent his sincerity and respect in asking. Elizabeth responded that she continues to pray over these considerations, and will address them at greater length once she\u2019s slept off the past several weeks\u2019 work of steering the Patheos Catholic Channel transition around icebergs and bringing it into port with all hands still on deck. But she was clear that it\u2019s a deck we Catholics need to be on:<\/p>\n

There is going to be this website bringing all of these POVs and beliefs together. Then, as a Catholic, don\u2019t I want to step up to the plate and have a say in how she is represented? Our own pope has said that there are pieces of the truth in every religion, but that we have the fullness of truth. Our previous pope said we have to live in the world as it is, and that means with all of these varieties. My hope, then is to make sure my church is fairly, accurately, optimistically and enthusiastically represented and that we will be inviting enough to assist the Holy Spirit. It\u2019s all I can do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I seconded that, citing the example of Paul\u2019s preaching at the Areopagus in Athens.<\/p>\n

But as a neophyte in the Catholic blogosphere, I realized that there are questions behind the commenter\u2019s questions that I\u2019ve not really answered\u2013or even asked\u2013for myself. With the US Bishops\u2019 recent request that Catholic media professionals use their voices to engage readers in the struggle to define, claim, and defend religious freedom in this country\u2013which Fr Z took a step further<\/a><\/u> by encouraging the bishops to enlist bloggers specifically\u2013and with the initiatives of the New Evangelization and the Year of Faith calling for more involvement by Catholics in the global marketplace of faith and values, there\u2019s growing interest in the role of the Catholic blogger. Following the inspiration of the Vatican, which hosted an international bloggers\u2019 summit last year, this summer\u2019s Catholic New Media Conference<\/a><\/u> will feature a day-long opportunity for bloggers to confer, converse, and otherwise hobnob with their brother and sister wizards. The Patheos upgrade seems as good an occasion as any to note that the Catholic blogosphere has come of sufficient age to engage in meta-analysis.\u00a0Four key questions we might ask (or continue to ask and discuss, where we are already asking them) are:<\/p>\n

Why do Catholics blog?<\/b>
\nThere are as many answers, I would imagine, as there are Catholic bloggers. Some, like Rocco Palmo at Whispers in the Loggia<\/a><\/u><\/i> or Deacon Greg Kandra at The Deacon\u2019s Bench<\/a><\/u><\/i>, come from a journalistic perspective, sharing news stories of interest to Catholics and observations triggered by those stories. (Deacon Greg, like many other members of the diaconate, also blogs on topics of interest to fellow deacons.) Some blog to inform, as Ed Peters does on canon law or Fr Z started out doing with the Latin roots of liturgical texts. Some bloggers are diarists, chronicling their lives as Catholic priests, hermits, religious, spouses, parents, singles, converts, reverts. Some share political commentary; others write on topics of interest as varied as religious art, film, history, the lives of the saints, even recipes. A good percentage of Catholic bloggers do all of these things at one time or another. Few of us are as candid as Mark Shea, who freely admits that his prolific Catholic and Enjoying It<\/i> blog exists \u201cso that no thought of mine, no matter how stupid, should ever go unpublished again\u201d\u2013although when you get down to it, there\u2019s some of that in everyone.<\/p>\n

Where do Catholic bloggers blog?<\/b>
\nAgain, we\u2019re all over the place. Some blog for established Catholic publications, like America<\/i> and First Things<\/i> and both NCR<\/i>s. Bishops and diocesan staff blog for their own diocesan websites or Catholic newspapers. Some are part of larger aggregator sites, whether Catholic-only as Elizabeth\u2019s commenter thinks we should stick to, or denominationally diverse, like Patheos. A good many Catholic bloggers are independent. Where and for whom we blog sometimes depends on our job or our politics, but increasingly it\u2019s also about being compensated for blogging. Are there places we shouldn\u2019t be blogging? Are there places we should be blogging and aren\u2019t?<\/p>\n

Why do people read Catholic blogs?<\/b>
\nHere\u2019s the intriguing question for me. Again, I\u2019m certain there\u2019s a limitless range of reasons, not all of them apparent from reading the comboxes (which mostly make me believe the only reason Catholics read Catholic blogs is to disagree with them), by any means. The concerns raised by Elizabeth\u2019s commenter would, I think, only apply in a few cases out of many\u2013but other reasons might raise other concerns.<\/p>\n

How does the Catholic blogosphere enhance\u2013or impede\u2013the New Evangelization?<\/b>
\nHow can we maximize the enhancement and minimize the impediments? That\u2019s the big question for our day.<\/p>\n

Four key questions. Or so I was thinking when I began this post this morning, but that was before I read the text<\/a><\/u> of Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization<\/i>, the statement released today by the USCCB\u2019s Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis. It\u2019s a good, solid, unsurprising take on the things dioceses and\u2013in particular\u2013parishes need to be doing to invite Catholics home, but I have to say I\u2019m slightly underwhelmed. Philosophically, there are some nice bits, especially about the need to develop a culture of witness, but methodologically I think it falls short. It\u2019s largely a rehash of the National Directory for Catechesis<\/i> stuff that\u2019s been out there for decades, and it\u2019s hard to see how the same tactics that were used to form all the Catholics who drifted away over the years are now going to be any more effective in bringing them back. Yes, discipleship and leadership and hospitality and sacramental catechesis and strengthened family life and good preaching are all important and necessary, but how are we going to do these things differently or better than we have been doing them? The document is short on practical strategies.<\/p>\n

Disciples Called to Witness<\/i>, despite paying lip service to the need to employ new media in evangelization and catechesis, also seems to be missing the boat with regard to the role these new media are already playing in attracting converts and reverts, sharing Catholic teaching and apologetics, countering misinformation in the secular media, and witnessing to the power and authenticity of the Gospel. In fact, the culture of witness that the Bishops are so intent on cultivating already exists, in actuality, in the Catholic blogosphere and in other forms of new media. The difference is, the blogosphere is neither institutionalized nor official nor parochial, and the vision of evangelization Disciples Called to Witness<\/i> promotes is very definitely all three.<\/p>\n

So now, in addition to the questions the Catholic blogosphere needs to ask itself, there are questions it needs to ask of the institutional Church. These might include:<\/p>\n

If, as Disciples Called to Witness<\/i> says, \u201cevangelization must remain rooted in the parish\u201d (p 12)<\/i>, how can non-institutional Catholic bloggers be of assistance<\/b> to institutional efforts to evangelize and catechize?<\/p>\n

If, as Disciples Called to Witness<\/i> seems to indicate, the involvement of new media in evangelization and catechesis is limited to \u201ccreditable\u201d online sources (p 18)<\/i>, what makes for credibility and who defines it?<\/b><\/p>\n

How might the energy and effectiveness of the culture of witness already present in the Catholic blogosphere serve to ignite and support<\/b> efforts on the institutional level?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one question, though, that I don\u2019t think we even need to go looking to answer anymore, and that\u2019s whether Catholics should blog. The answer\u2013like the answer to whether Paul should have preached to the Athenians\u2013is a resounding Yes. Paul\u2019s message and purpose, and the needs of his hearers, have not changed, even though the means of sharing the mission and answering the needs have evolved:<\/p>\n

\u201d . . . so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.\u201d (Acts 17:26-27)<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am excited about being a Catholic blogger at this point in the Church\u2019s history, and I look forward to participating in the free and open discussion of these and many other questions. I hope my readers (small but stalwart band that you are) will help me out by answering some of these questions and raising new ones in comments.\u00a0What say you?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he grew exasperated at the sight of the city full of idols. So he debated in the synagogue with the Jews and with the worshipers, and daily in the public square with whoever happened to be there. (Acts 17:16-17) Yesterday the online religion site Patheos debuted a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGroping for God: Why and Where Catholics Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he grew exasperated at the sight of the city full of idols. 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