If you've spent any time mulling around the Catholic blogosphere over the past few days, you've probably stumbled across the kerfuffle surrounding two well known Catholic bloggers who recently lost their writing positions at a well known Catholic publication due to various comments they've made online. You won't find any commentary on that particular situation here because that's not what we do at The B-Movie Catechism. What you will find, though, is this old cartoon I whipped up a few years ago which acknowledges the fact that St. Blogs can be a testy place from time to time, and pretty much always has been that way.
You know, the Catechism doesn't directly address blogging or comment sections on websites. It does, however, have a section on the use of social communications media where it notes, "It is necessary that all members of society meet the demands of justice and charity in this domain." So yeah, based on that, it's reasonable to assume that we're expected to watch our virtual tongues when we're interacting online. Anonymity doesn't excuse us from the demands of our faith. Now, of course, you're free to disagree with that conclusion, and if you do, by all means leave a comment below. But, you know, do it nicely.
4 comments:
I had to google "Catholic blogger fired" to figure out what you were talking about. Ever since it dawned on me that 98% of my gratuitous anxiety came from something I saw on controversy-driven websites or television, I stopped looking at the stuff.
Yep.
Do you know what "flyting" is? Flyting was a ritualized exchange of insults that did not result in violence in medieval Germanic culture - a great custom when the warrior class sat around drinking while heavily armed & a great compliment for a king's self-restraint was "He never stabbed his drinking companions at the table." Flying was last spotted in the Robin Williams' "Hook".
Anyway, this post made me think how much better the Catholic blogosphere would be if we had flyting. I'm pretty sure your readership would be especially well-prepared for this sort of thing. "Your argument against ad orientem worship has the coherence of Troll 2!", "May green brussel sprout concentrate on your face make locusts eat you alive!", and so on.
Now I'm wishing Gordon Ramsey did liturgical commentary....
Scott, I know what you mean. In my thirties I was a political junkie. Spent most of the day in the car listening to talk radio, and a lot of evenings letting talk shows run on the TV. It finally dawned on me just how miserable a steady diet of that stuff was making me feel, so these days I only tune in around major political happenings just to see what everyone is saying. I'm much happier now.
Xena, I like it, although as sometimes happens in 'The Dozens' we would have to stipulate a no 'yo mama' rule. 'Yo momma' wouldn't go over too well in Catholic circles.
Haha!! Xena I love your insults. I hope I never meet you in a dark alley. You will insult me to death.
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