Bloggers and bishops

Brandon Vogt has a list of 7 Things Bishops Should Know About Catholic Bloggers. He has put this out in advance of a meeting next week hosted by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops following the success of last year's meeting of bloggers hosted by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. (See my post: Vatican surprises bloggers with successful meeting.) Without wishing to be presumptuous, I would humbly suggest that it would be a good article for our Bishops  of England and Wales to consider at their meeting this coming week. Who knows? Perhaps we could have a blogger-bishops fest at Eccleston Square?

Bloggers talking about blogging always gets bloggers blogging about it, and a "List of x Things" is a well-tried formula for getting readers either in print or online, so kudos to Brandon for the hit spike his post will generate! Thanks be to God, he talks a lot of sense.

I would agree with him on nearly everything but would add some shading to Thing #1. The relationship between bloggers and bishops is not simply friend or enemy. There are good Catholic bloggers who are friends of Christ and of the Church, saying the Rosary for the Bishop and putting the graphic on their sidebar, but being a critical voice too.

If this criticism is from some as yet undiscovered mythical part of Lumen Gentium which supposedly invented an alternative magisterium, then we can thank God that the Church does have the means of stating what is and is not part of her teaching.

If on the other hand, the criticism is in support of the magisterium or discipline of the Church against a perceived dissent or deviation, then there is a debate to be had. A bishop who is confident that he is expressing orthodox faith and is in line with the Church's law can explain this. A bishop who thinks the blogger is unorthodox or otherwise out of line can explain that too.

In the end, this is nothing new. We are all bound by the teaching and discipline of holy mother Church. Unless we descend into rampant gallicanism, Bishops are also part of the hierarchy which has at its head the Bishop of Rome, acting on a day-to-day basis through the dicasteries of the Holy See.

I believe, along with Fr Z that the internet operates a "reverse Gresham's law" where good information drives out bad. If that is true, then blogging can only further the Kingdom - even if the pesky bloggers are a bit awkward at times.

Popular posts from this blog

1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
Read more

Request for Novena to Blessed Pius IX

Image
A priest friend of mine is ill in hospital. He has a special devotion to Blessed Pius IX. Could I ask you, of your charity, to say a Novena for his speedy recovery. Novena In Honour of Blessed Pius IX Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, hear our prayers and glorify your servant Pius IX, who consecrated the Universal Church to you. (Our Father...) O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you, hear our prayer and glorify your servant Pius IX who declared you Immaculate. (Hail Mary...) Saint Joseph, spouse of the most pure Virgin Mary, hear our prayer and glorify your servant Pius IX who declared you the Patron of the Universal Church. (Glory be...) Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Mary, our Hope, and Saint Joseph hear our prayers and glorify your servant Pius IX , granting to us through his merits and intercessions the graces which we ardently desire: that the glory of God be revealed through Father's illness. (Our Father..., Hail Mary..., Glory be...
Read more

Saint Gabriel

Image
The angels call for our veneration and awe as part of God’s creation. Part of the destructive modernism of the 1970s included advice to Catholic school teachers that they should not talk to children about angels. This wrought lasting damage which continues to need rectifying. We should include in our prayers a heartfelt recourse to our own Guardian Angels. The Archangel Gabriel “God is my strength” would be terrifying were he to appear to any of us. Our Lady was “troubled” at the word of Saint Gabriel and wondered at the manner of the salutation. Immediately, according to his mission, the awesome messenger explained himself. Modern retelling of the event is often reduced to the jejune “Mary said Yes to God”. In fact, she said “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”. This conveys more accurately the flawless faith and trust of the Immaculata. In the infinitely wise providence of the Father, we now know the structure of the event in even more detai...
Read more

Saint Ignatius on heresy, and the capsizing boat

Image
On the feast of St Ignatius, I offer my prayers and good wishes to some great Jesuits. Just off the top of my head, I think of Fr Joseph Fessio SJ the founder of Ignatius Press which has not only published the English translations of various works of Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict, but has also given a break for good Catholic authors both of theology and of Catholic fiction. Then there is Fr Bob Spitzer SJ, with whom I studied in Rome many years ago, and Fr Paul Mankowski SJ who has written some superb articles over the years. Here in England, I recall Fr Anthony Meredith SJ, the great fatherly commentator on the Fathers of Cappadocia and in Rome, there is Fr Gilles Pelland SJ, the fierce French-Canadian patristics scholar was a bit harsh when I first arrived in the Holy City, but seemed to soften a bit when after 5 years he seeme satisfied that, though English, I was not a modernist. Many of my Jesuit priest friends and mentors have now reached “that night when no man can work”...
Read more

Downloadable booklets for Vespers

Image
Gregorian Chant Hymns is a most helpful website that I mentioned in a post just over a year ago. As I said then, the site "[...] promotes the learning of Gregorian Chant by making sheet music, recordings, translations, and instructions. There is a short guide to Gregorian Notation (those square notes) and to Latin pronunciation. Everything is available free of charge, in line with other great traditional music websites." Work has continued at the site and there is now a section which makes available pdf (or .docx format) booklets for Vespers for every Sunday of the Year and a few major feasts. There is the basic booklet for ordinary Sunday Vespers which is supplemented by separate files for the Sundays after Pentecost which contain the Magnificat and Collect. Then there are booklets, for example for Advent and Lent, where the office is different from the regular Sunday Vespers with its antiphons. All of the booklets have texts and notation for Benediction and the Maria...
Read more