I. Now you'd think with a name like the Canadian Catholic News that we're talking about some super duper cooperative news service on par, say, with the USCCB's Catholic New Service. Well, it ain't CNS and you will recall CCN member sites do carry the CNS feed. Listed at its website, CCN full members are the Catholic Register, B.C. Catholic, New Freeman, Western Catholic Reporter and Prairie Messenger.[1] Strange is it that other listed members still include Antigonish's Atlantic Catholic, Montreal's Catholic Times and Greg Baum's Catholic New Times. The first became defunct in 2010, the second is immanently kaput because of a financial dispute, and the third, a Marxist screed sheet, ceased publication long ago... in 2006.[2] So it seems the CCN website is overdue for an aggiornamento, as the Nu-Church hipsters have said and sung. You might recognize them on the left.II. But don't be fooled by the diminution. Lesser size, not lesser significance (we will return to this overlooked aspect in a moment). And don't forget they are transitioning from print to internet, albeit with a time lag. Just now the Canadian Catholic MSM is emerging from the Information Superhighway stage of the "world wide web". Sooooooo 90s. On surface appearance CCN states that it "brings together the efforts of Catholic newspapers, radio and television across Canada, to provide an accurate, dependable coast-to-coast picture of the Catholic Church in action". This "in action" stuff seems exciting, in a Geraldo Rivera kind of way that is. For outsiders who follow the guts of Church affairs in Canada and see through the cheesy moustache facade, "accurate, dependable" and "Canadian Catholic media" aren't coterminous clauses. There are a rare exceptions. Today, however, we're zooming in on life in the bubble as such. Let's see if we can burst a few of them.
III. First let's look at some paid circulation statistics and try to form a picture as to what's going on here. Nothing complicated like a non-linear regression model. Just the basics. Canada's oldest English language Catholic sheet is the Catholic Register. CR today is certainly not what it was when it started way back in 1830. Like many Catholic periodicals suckered in by the hippy hype, its downslide began after V2. But in 1973 Larry Henderson, loyal to the Magisterium, took the reigns as editor and increased its circulation from 30,000 to 60,000 by the time he vamoosed in 1986.[3] Just over two decades later when the apostatic Joe Sinasac ended his tenure as editor at CR in late 2008, circulation had again dwindled, hovering around 34,000.[4] Sinasac's swan song piece before jumping ship was to ass lick Hans "King" Küng.[5] He now heads the geriatric corps that run Novalis Publishers. Go figure.
IV. Edmonton's Western Catholic Reporter has comparable circulation at approximately 35,500.[6] Its current editor is one Glen Argan who, the evidence shows, has gots da hots for Sr. Elizabeth Johnson. It should be noted that Lizzie has a notorious reputation. No, not the one of axe wielding fame. Instead this little muffin is into chopping up Church doctrine, by endorsing womyn's ordination, goddess worship and feminizing the Holy Trinity. Indeed, Lizzie's exegesis on the latter topic has apparently unloosened the knot in Glen's panties.[7] Last March the boyz south of the 49th parallel called for the banning of her 2007 book Quest for the Living God.[8] The fact that the American bishops, Conciliarists galore, took this action says much. Still out west is Vancouver's B.C. Catholic, with a circulation at around 19000. Lower down the circulation rung is the Prairie Messenger, based out of Saskatchewan, ringing in at 6800. Heading back east, the number is 7300 for the New Freeman and, before its demise, the Atlantic Catholic had a final circulation of 1280. The Catholic Times had about 10,000 subscribers.[9]
V. Allllrighteeee, then. We have some numbers with which to work. Consider now that 46 percent of Canadians are Catholic, a total of 13,070,000 people, based on 2008 data. The stats above show that current circulations only range from 6800 to just over 35000. Thus readership is negligible when compared to the overall Catholic populace. Geographical and age factors also come into play. For instance, the Catholic Register, branding itself as "Canada's Catholic News Source", is not so much national as provincial since its readers are mainly Ontarians. The average age of readers of the Western Catholic Reporter scores in at a babybooming 61, i.e. "I've fallen and I can't get up".[10] The minuscule circulation numbers of these papers relative to the total number of Catholics in Canada might lead one to conclude on their insignificance. Not so. These papers are not just outlets for "social justice" groups to promote whatever trendy cause. Neither are they just space-fillers for Ron Rolhesier's pop-psychology ruminations. Rather - as has often been observed for Catholic organs outside of Canada, the importance of these older periodicals in the post-V2 era is that they are read by establishment Catholics. They set the atmosphere, determining what Catholic-related stories are newsworthy, highlighting causes they think are relevant (e.g. anti-bottled water campaign, climate change) while omitting or de-emphasizing those they think not (e.g. life issues, threat of Jihadism). Not a little of this "journalism" is directed toward influencing appointments and making sure that monies garnered from either pew-sitters or government taxes go to "the right groups". You know. And all of this eventuates within the Bubble World of the "professional Catholic" class. As for the majority of Catholics? Well, they're just... there. Along for the ride, to watch the show, and where we go you'll never know.
VI. Not just for the now diminishing print media, the aforementioned situation is also occurrent in Catholic cyberspace. For a demonstration of this we go to the luvvies at the Salt + Light Media Foundation. Besides its television broadcasts - which isn't exactly pulling in Catholic viewers en masse - there is the state-of-the-art website. It has everything: you can watch and listen to S+L programs, you can subscribe to its own hardcopy magazine Lampstand, you can read its multitudinous articles and blog posts, you can purchase swag from the online store, Twitter, Facebook. Bing bang boom... everything. A veritable cornucopia of El Presidente-approved delights. But let me now introduce you Mr. Caveat. El Presidente, that would be S+L CEO Fr. Thomas Rosica, recently claimed that his blog at the website under perusal receives 70,000 visitors per week - not so fast Catholic peoples. An inquisitive blogger found that Fr. Tom, as per usual, isn't backing up his claim with something called "facts". Firstly, a little reminder of the definition of the word "fact" from a reliable dictionary: "the quality of being actual, something that has an actual existence, an actual occurrence, a piece of information presented as having objective reality".[11] Hope that wasn't too difficult... In actuality, the entire Salt+Light website, not just Rosica's blog, receives approximately 1700 to 9800 hits per month. And is it not devastating that LifeSite News, Salt+Light's arch-nemesis, gets 150,000 to upwards of 200,000 visitors per month? The facts can be observed here and here. As I write, LSN has 9277 "likes" on its Facebook "like box" (8452 on April 20). Salt+Light has 3473 "likes" (3257 on April 20). Salt+Light's Facebook "like box" has since been removed from the website's main home page when last April this blogger contrasted the enormity of the numerical divide.
VII. So here we have an establishment media outlet that gets the big money from la famiglia Gagliano yet cannot compete with the readership of an underdog like LSN, regularly strapped for financial support. Accordingly, Salt+Light's significance, as with the "venerable" print newspapers, lies only in the fact that it is bolstered by establishment Catholics. In this case, it's principally the business glitterati that sit on the S+L board of directors: CEO's at St. Joseph's Communications, Longo Brothers Fruit Markets Incorporated, Clearwater Capital Management Incorporated, Diamante Development Corporation, Carpe Diem Growth Capital, CPI Card Group, UCS Forest Group and Venterra Realty Management. The latter, incidentally, is a supporter of Susan G. Komen, big time donor to Planned Parenthood. NCR's John Allen, Jr. has proclaimed that his bosom buddy Fr. Rosica possesses "business moxie".[12] Evidently, not enough moxie. Venterra Realty would have been barred from the S+L board had it been properly vetted in the first place. Or so one would think. Google it. It's that simple.
VIII. Time now to head out into Prairie country and visit the Fabianist folks at the Prairie Messenger. Here we will find an example of how these "professional Catholic" types network with one another inside Bubble World. The editor at PM is Peter Novecosky, OSB. Before anything else, the thing you have to understand about Pete is that he's into, like, dissent n'stuff. He makes darn well sure that the Prairie Messenger is peppered will all manner it. On its links page there are connections to the sites of The Stephen Lewis Foundation, certainly a good friend of the Church; to the pro-aborts at Amnesty International; to the National Catholic Reporter, nuff said; and, tally ho!, to Development and Peace, of which we shall return in a moment. If you read PM online - and I highly advise against it, unless you want to bore and/or infuriate yourself into a coma - you really have to wonder why it classifies itself as a "Catholic Journal". Its contents contain the usual heterodox fare, like the CNS news feed, Rollie's "In Exile" column, opinion pieces favourable to women's ordination, nature worship, Statism and so forth. Some of the material is just downright annoying, like its "Around the Kitchen Table" commentaries. I'm talking Jar Jar Binks annoying. But that's a story for another day.
IX. If you've been following the continuing saga on the Development and Peace scandal you would know that, as of late May, Fr. Luis Arriaga Valenzuela has left his position as head of the pro-abort supporting PRODH group, based out of Mexico, supported by D+P.[13] Seems he's looking for another gig. I suggest he apply to be a sales rep for Armani suits. Strike a pose. Still, it's no coincidence that Arriaga's departure came so soon after Abp. Prendergast did a "no way José" and cancelled his Ottawa speaking engagement for the D+P crowd in early April. Funding for PRODH has just been cut and it's also not helpful that Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City wrote in a letter last week that PRODH:
...does NOT represent the sentiments of the Church and has been characterized by its support and encouragement of groups and activities that are an affront to Christian values... the organization has supported pro-abortion groups and promoted the purported woman's right over her body, against unborn life.[14]Ouch. Accordingly, D+P members have switched into hissy fit mode. A petition has been drafted demanding that they not:
...be intimidated or paralyzed by the devious and misleading attacks of fundamentalist movements seeking Conservative support in Episcopate Canada... to put aside the fear to face the political conservatism that plagues our society and our choices.Members of D+P have also produced a blog, filled with videos, support letters and other manifestations of desperation. And it seems that others are getting in on the action: the Quebec labour union Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux (CNS), the Provincial Superiors of the Jesuits of Mexico and Canada (Fr. Arriaga is a Jesuit); the dissenting priest Fr. Claude Lacaille, aided by the leftist paper Le Devoir and - surprise! - Fr. Raymond Gravel.[15] Hark, is that lavender I hear fluttering in the wind? Indeed, it's like the good old days, when they protested against "The Man", except today a slug of Geritol is necessitated prior to hitting the streets.
X. Okay, back to the Flatlands. Home base for the Prairie Messenger is the Town of Muenster, Saskatchewan. Population: 342 (located 200 kilometres north of Regina, the province's capital). Not exactly a cultural hub at first glance, however know that St. Peter's College is situated therein. It was founded in 1921 by the Benedictine monks of St. Peter's Abbey. This, of course, was when monks were monks, not the (ahem) effete breed we find in the post-V2 era. Now given the fact all of the action surrounding the Development and Peace scandal is happening back east in the highly populated Ottawa-Montreal corridor, considering PM's relatively low circulation of 6800 with a similarly minimal online readership, and taking into account the generally provincialized, bucolic focus of PM - these lead me to ponder why Novocaine Pete would publish a protest letter by four prominent members D+P. As above, the answer lies not size and numbers, but in how this exclusive group of "professional Catholics" hobnob with one another so as to maintain the antinomian party line from coast to coast.
XI. Here are some excerpts from the protest letter, published on May 25 in PM:
We, members of Development and Peace (D & P), are saddened by the crisis threatening our organization, a crisis originating in virulent attacks by Catholic groups who call themselves "real Catholics" but who appear to us to be rather sectarian... In an attempt to satisfy these extremists, D & P decided to oblige each partner to get a letter of support from the local bishop as a condition for financial support from D & P...We hope that the standing committee of bishops, recently created for relations with D & P, fulfil its mandate of consultant, but abstain from intrusion in the internal management of the organization which must keep its full autonomy and democratic functioning...[16]The last quoted line is a giveaway in terms of exhibiting the unmitigated defiance of this so-called "Catholic" agency, of refusing answerability to the bishops, themselves divided over the affair. No mention whatsoever of the easily accessible and incontrovertible evidences showing pro-abortion facilitation by groups supported by D+P. Once again: omission and de-emphasization.
XII. Publishing the D+P letter just wasn't enough for Novocaine Pete cuz, like, he's into dissent n'stuff. One week prior on May 18 The Numb One got Joe Gunn of the Citizens for Public Justice - from way back east in Ottawa, to come to the defence of D+P. Gunny, in his "Journey to Justice" column, played the standard omission game too:
In 2009, two Canadian bishops with long missionary experience in Latin America travelled to the region with the then general secretary of the bishops' conference... Their report... exonerated the Miguel Pro Centre and other CCODP partners...[17]What Gunny fails to mention is that one of those bishops, namely Martin Currie, confessed that the original CCCB report was co-written by D+P itself. This was reported on April 21, about one month before May 18.[18] Gunny also diminishes the abortion issue, despite the evidence. In fact, he has a history of overlooking the pro-abortion policies of NGOs and the like. You know, those agencies that pay him to write long-winded neo-Marxist reports nobody reads and to attend those innumerable, meaningless "Sustainable Development" conferences where the booze and broads run aplenty. Last year in a "Catholic" publication[19] he lamented government defunding of organizations such as Amnesty International, OXFAM, KAIROS and MATCH - all of them having pro-abortion stances.[20] Shucks, that Gunny... what a schmuck.
XIII. The abovementioned, so charitably narrated by your host, is indicative of a pathetic state of affairs. The Canadian Catholic MSM and the "professional Catholic" class in general, this juggernaut of homely apostasy, has dominanted for quite some time in our fair land, from sea to shining sea. Back in the 1990s, Michael Coren, before becoming a Catholic, observed:
If Catholic literature and journalism is left to the Roman Catholic laity there are dark, Calvinist stormclouds ahead. That noble, rosary-long tradition of the Catholic intellectual and writer, once as enviable as it was inevitable, is dangerously close to termination. The dumbing of Catholicism in this country is connected, in particular, with the faith's embrace of assimilation and consequent secularism, and with a fear of being perceived as being different, alien, un-Canadian.[21]On similar lines, the brilliant historian Preston Jones, while residing in Canada, penned the following for the New Oxford Review:
...at least in America there's some cultural debate. Put it this way: The essay you are now reading could probably not get published in Canada. Canadian cultural conservatives and orthodox Christians must look south for intellectual sustenance. Canada’s indigenous media, with a few noble and small exceptions, sing in nihilistic unison.[22]At the time Coren and Jones, like most everyone else, were unaware of how the internet/blogging would rise up to challenge the SV2-superstars after the turn of the millennium. The playing field has changed entirely. I don't like being deterministic, though in this case an exception will be made: Resistance is futile. The Cross is Victorious. Period.
NOTES / REFERENCES
1. Associate Members include: Catholic Youth Studio - KSM Inc. (Toronto, ON), Diocesan Messenger (Victoria, BC), Diocesan News (Kamloops, BC), Journey (Kingston, ON), Newsletter of the Diocese of London (ON) and Salt + Light Catholic Media Foundation (Toronto, ON).
2. C. MacEachern, "Atlantic Catholic paper printed own obituary", Western Catholic Reporter, August 30, 2010; A. de Valk, "Catholic weeklies fold", Catholic Insight, October 2010, vol. XVIII, no. 9, p. 26; J. Huot, C. Lockett, S. Lynett and M. Monk, "Catholic New Times ends publication, vision will rise again", Catholic New Times, November 26, 2006.
3. L.A. Kennedy, "Larry Henderson: Journalist", Catholic Insight, November 2002, vol. X, no. 10, pp. 14-15.
4. Based on data from the Newspapers Canada database.
5. J. Sinasac, "Küng vs. the Vatican: Who Really Won?", Catholic Register, October 31, 2008.
6. Newspapers Canada database. See note 4.
7. G. Argan, "A feminist perception of the Spirit", Western Catholic Reporter, July 26, 2010.
8. L. Goodstein, "Bishops Urge Catholic Schools to Ban a Nun's Book", New York Times, March 30, 2011.
9. These numbers are from the Canadian Church Press. For a brief historical run-down on Catholic periodicals in Canada see L. Lindsay, "Periodical Literature (Canada)" in The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911).
10. See R. Baier, "Readers give strong response to WCR Survey", Western Catholic Reporter, December 27, 2010.
11. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Toronto: Thomas Allen & Son, Limited, 1977), p. 410.
12. J.L. Allen, Jr., "Thoughts on post-tribal Catholicism", National Catholic Reporter, April 15, 2011.
13. M.C. Hoffman, "Fr. Arriaga, leader of pro-abortion D&P grant recipient, leaves office following scandal", LifeSite News, May 30, 2011.
14. Quoted in M. Swan, "Mexican cardinal's letter led to D&P funding cuts", Catholic Register, June 3, 2011.
15. CSN, "Le Conseil central du Montréal métropolitain-CSN se porte à la défense de Développement et Paix", June 2, 2011; J.M Biron, J. Webb and C.M. Otero, "Communiqué", Province du Canada français de la Compagnie de Jésus; J.C. Leclerc, "Développement et Paix en question - Nouvelle attaque de l'intégrisme religieux", Le Devoir, April 11, 2011; for Fr. Raymond Gravel's support see here.
16. C. Vaudrin, L. Plourde, G. Laverdure and N. Breault, "The Global South may lose a valuable northern ally", Prairie Messenger, May 25, 2011, vol. 89, no. 1.
17. J. Gunn, "Ecclesial politics shouldn't trump development potential", Prairie Messenger, May 18, 2011, vol. 89, no. 1.
18. Cf. J.H. Westen, "Archbishop: D&P co-wrote the CCCB report exonerating pro-abort partners, slamming LSN", LifeSite News, April 21, 2011.
19. J. Gunn, "Government silences voices of dissent, Charities, NGOs, suddenly find themselves cut off from federal funds", Western Catholic Reporter, July 19, 2010.
20. For the support/facilitation of abortion by Amnesty International: "Amnesty International Canada's consultations regarding sexual and reproductive rights - May 2007", Public Statement issued on June 14, 2007. OXFAM: S Block, "Oxfam and Sojourners gang up to save the world", Spero News, July 21, 2009. KAIROS: A. de Valk, "Catholics should stop funding KAIROS", Catholic Insight, January 2010, vol. XVIII, no. 1, p. 3. MATCH International: P. Tuns, "Ottawa defunds feminist groups", The Interim, June 9, 2010.
21. M. Coren, Setting it Right (Toronto: Stoddart Publishing Company, 1996).
22. P. Jones, "Canada: No Longer Morally Superior to the U.S.", New Oxford Review, July-August 1997, vol. LXIV, no. 6, p. 24.
24 comments:
I'll take CNA/EWTN over the USCCB's CNS any day. But it sounds like even CNS is doing a better job than CCN. The subscription problem for those Catholic in Name Only papers down here is similar. A lot of it has to do with the internet sources like CNA/EWTN & LifeSite & some others that provide aacurate coverage as you point out.
As usual, there are so many things I could comment on, but I will limit it to the D+P petition. Before I go on to that however, I wonder how many more hissy fits were tossed out after the Caritas meeting in Rome where the Pope slapped down virtually everything that D+P was doing.
Back to the petition. The 1st line says it all "DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE is defined as a democratic movement for international solidarity." Nothing about being Catholic. & as you go on it becomes clear it is more like the liberation theology socialist model that the Church has condemned under Pope John Paul. & despite their claim to be oriented toward Populorum Progressio, I highly doubt they have actually read what Pope Paul really said in it. I say that because even a quick perusal of Populorum Progressio makes it clear that ultimately all that is done is a part of proclaiming the Gospel. & as for saying it OK to support pro-abort groups, as they imply, section 37 (Population Growth) of PP says something completely different. "There is no doubt that public authorities can intervene in this matter, within the bounds of their competence. They can instruct citizens on this subject and adopt appropriate measures, so long as these are in conformity with the dictates of the moral law and the rightful freedom of married couples is preserved completely intact. When the inalienable right of marriage and of procreation is taken away, so is human dignity." Hmmm sounds to me like PP is decrying artificial birth control & abortion.
I could go on, but it is clear that the whole petition is a prime example of the true spirit in D+P, dissent from authentic Catholic teaching under the guise of claiming to provide the true interpretation. & now that they are being called on it, rather than admit the truth, they attack the messenger. That may play within their ranks, & with those who are uninformed. But someday they will have to face up to the fact that those Vatican authorities are the ones interpreting it correctly, not them.
PS didn't get a chance to add earlier that that picture looks like a scene out of a 60s sci-fi pic where the people were taken over by alien pod people. The guy on the right looks like he is being played by Rob Reiner.
I
I have long since stopped relying on Catholic media in Canada. Anything good definitely comes from the little guys: bloggers, Catholic Insight, LifeSite News. Really is there anything else up here? Other than those mentioned, I go to American sources.
JP: I concur. Just wish more Canadian bloggers would rise to the occasion.
Al: Your comments on Development and Peace are on the money. The defiance is pretty much absolute. One thing that could topple the cards is a "Deep Throat" type whistle blower from the inside. I've been thinking about that possibility for a few months now. My bet is that the people at LSN has are considering this scenario as well. Given that the controversy has intensified since the beginning of April, some sort of inside revelation would be devastating to the whole D+P edifice.
VI: S&L's "Like" button is back. Watch out; they're up to 3478!
Hey there, Fluffy: On the website page there is the "like" button. But the "like box", with photos of "likers" (so to speak), still isn't. Perhaps I should have been more specific. Mea culpa.
Ahh-I should have caught that myself, TH2. Mea maxima culpa.
A priest from the Archdiocese of Toronto just told me about this site! Looking forward to reading it more often!
Ironic that AB Prendergast is a Jesuit!
Just a note about The Catholic Register - each parish in the Toronto Archdiocese must pay for a certain amount of subscriptions. They forward on addresses of parishioners and these people receive the paper "free" for a period of time and then are asked to pay for it themselves. This started I believe with Cardinal Ambrozic.
The paper under the new editor has slowly been changing editorially but also with writers and columnists. Michael Swan needs to leave and a few others like Fr.Ron but Fr. Raymond, Michael Coren and Dorothy McLean-Cummings to name a few are spot on.
Novalis still has a grip on this diocese as they promote many of the books within some of the Archdiocesan offices.
When they promote a publisher that can sell Sr. Joan and Sr. Elizabeth's books - it says something about the fact that the archdiocese still needs to clean up. One of the sacramental books that this archdiocese suggests to parishes for First Reconciliation is from Novalis which makes no reference to sin or to the 10 Commandments. We ditched the book and used Faith and Life when my children took the classes.
For practicing Catholics who would pick up these newspapers - it gives them the impression that this article or that is based on Catholic teaching or that this retreat house or this publishing company that advertises in these newspapers are OK. The laity are called to learn their faith and when you have generations of Catholics who haveunwittingly read articles and purchase items (books) from the advertisers in these newspapers we now see the fruits of even those who thought they were learning their faith - they were in fact learning heresy or losing the faith.
Looking forward to your writings. For the most part insightful.
Pax Christi,
I've been selling Catholic books for some years now (although currently not too active) and I have found a few good Canadian Catholic products. They aren't usually from Novalis, or the CCCB (although there are signs of hope there). It's a shame because I really wanted to support Canadians, but I want to support the Church more.
So I have developed a "suitable level of anti-clericalism", which is I think how Flannery O'Connor put it, and only support what our Bishops and fellow countryfolk support IF it is also in line with the Church.
Cheers Teresa. Interesting comments you make. I was thinking irony, too, about Abp. Prendergast being a Jesuit. Jesuit provincial superiors both in Canada and Mexico have come to support Development and Peace, again demonstrating how this once great order has devolved into bunch of effeminate radicals enraptured by Liberation Theology and other species of Marxism. Just read America magazine. As for Novalis, it needs a complete overhaul, if not elimination. See my analysis: http://bit.ly/l70rBH.
There is also the newly started Justin Press for Canadian Catholic books, though I assume you already are aware.
I am aware of Justin Press, and I wish them well!
I am also aware of a movement to set up publishng and sales to present an orthodox rival to Novalis. I don't know where it's at, as I first heard of it several years ago. I also wish them great success.
If it wasn't for Lifesite news, there would be no media in Canada to challenge the Catholic establishment in this country. Thank G-d for Lifesite.
Hey, I'll take all the fans I can get.
Hey, TH2. Me again. Late to the party. I was busy with stuff.
Listen, about Joe Sinasac... It's me, so you know what's coming next. Apologia pro Joe.
Joe did not like Hans Kung's book. I know he didn't. I saw it on his desk while he made faces at it. He struggled to write a fair review, and that meant saying something nice somewhere. I am not as peace-loving and kindly as Joe, so I probably would have shredded the boring old coot. If you reread Joe's review, while in a good mood, after consuming a cup of coffee and a fine piece of pie, you may come to the correct conclusion that Joe hated the book and just threw Hansel the bone of saying maybe we need cranky old gits carping at the Church. I'm not so sure we do, but that's a nothing matter entirely.
As we would say in Scotland, gonnae no' use sich language aboot oor Joe, ken, eh?
Just drop the Lonergan thing, please.
Ah, Lonergan. Hmm, come to think of it, I haven't mentioned him for a while. Thanks for the reminder!
Meanwhile, I forget to mention that Michael Swan is a reporter, not a columnist or a blogger. He goes all over the world to report on the condition of Catholics in war-torn and ground-down spots, putting his health and sometimes his life in danger to get the story. And having gone to journalism school, he's got an internal chain of command when it comes to stuff like fairness and smoking guns, etc., which reporters have to be more stringent about than op.ed. writers like Father D and me. A newspaper has to have old-time reporters, too.
My dear Seraphic:
Again, we are coming to the situation of defending friends as such and minimizing/disregarding what they write and advocate. If you were head at Novalis, would you publish Chittister, Baum, Kung and liberation theology tracts? It's an open secret that Novalis is heterodox/heretical careerist agency (e.g. see Teresa's comment above). In my opinion, your book is the "token Catholic" one, so to speak. As for Mr. Swan (not mentioned in my post), I recall many reviews and writings of his as far back as the 1990s that were anti-orthodox, conservative-vilifying. Not so much from the pen of a "unbiased' reporter. Any reports were on carefully selected subjects, focussing on the "the right groups/people", lefist, always portrayed in a positive light.
I fully understand loyalty to your friends and to those, I guess,
provided writing opportunities. I am happy for your success and only
wish you more in the future. Really, I do. My deduction is that, as a "Trid" who has made her way through a climate of heteordoxy and lukewarm Catholicism, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. That is, writing as an authentic Catholic (as you do) contra being loyal to those liberal dissidents who "control the show". For example, it royally ticked me off that you had to deal with that heresy-enabling schmuck at the Prairie Messenger, being called a "Mad Trad", when in fact the madness can be found in the remainder of that so-called "Catholic Journal". Had the PM been an authentically Catholic periodical, it would have allowed you to continue to write there, and thus make your name more widely known, allowing for more writing opportunities elsewhere. Instead, you were shut down. I mentioned these exclusionary tactics when commenting at your blog about a month or so ago.
And it is these careerist criminals, lay and religious, that have stolen authentic Catholicism from my generation. With their antinomianisms, their Kafkaesque bureacracies, their Protestantized liturgies, their horizontalist "we are church" Marxisms, their Statist economics, their quasi-pantheistic nature worshiping ideologies, their lukewarm-weak wills and attitudes, their manifest heresies, and so forth. Moreover, I am very perceptive to how these ideas gradually filter down into the lives of people, to those closest to me, and have watched as they made terrible personal decisions as a consequence, leading them astray and worse. Accordingly, I am going to use the intellectual equipment that the good Lord has given me and, with my little blog, I am going to stalk these criminals out, and I am going to hunt them down.
Didn't mean to ramble, but there ya go...
As usual it takes me 500 words to get to the central point, which is that it is great to attack harmful ideas, it is not great to vilify people. If you write something obscene about Joe Sinasac or if your comment thread contains a suggestion Michael Swan should lose his livelihood, I'm going to object and, sure, it's because they're my friends. Why else? I'm not your mom or your confessor. And the obscenity is way worse than calling Sr. Joan Satan's Own Little Blueberry Muffin.
M'Lady, we have come to another impasse... Busy for the next little bit and also have to pick up someone at the airport. Will be back by tomorrow to respond to your comments.
I shall now gather my thoughts. It seems fitting that your arch-nemesis is a TLM fan. Lonergan was very big on what he called common ground. I have to rush off to Mass for the Feast of the Sacred Heart (in Latin, natch), but I will leave you with some classic St. Paul: 1 Cor 13:1-13, with a special emphasis on "if I hand over my body to be burned."
Thank you for showing up the heretical drivel that passes for "catholic" media these days.
They should change the name of the Western Catholic Reporter to simply the Western Reporter, or the Western Communist Reporter as colleagues of mine refer to it, as this publication has not been truly Catholic or likely will ever be. Yoga and Balthasar this week. Kyrie eleison. :-(
Thanks, Dixie. It is my pleasure to report and I shall continue to do so in the future.
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