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Catholic Blogs in Print
11/15/2002

Commonweal magazine's November 8 issue (which is not yet online) has an article about Catholic bloggers by Peter Feuerherd. Only four bloggers are mentioned: Andrew Sullivan, Amy Welborn, Rod Dreher, and Mark Shea, about whom Feuerherd writes:

Some bloggers joke about the role of blogs in filling the ego needs of prolific writers in search of an audience. Mark Shea candidly offers his blog's purpose with a tongue-in-cheek mission statement: "So that no thought of mine, no matter how stupid, should ever go unpublished again."

Needless to say, this is a highly selective list, which suggests one reason for this erroneous statement:

In weeks of perusing Catholic blogs, I saw just one comment on impending war with Iraq, with the exception of the running commentary provided on Andrew Sullivan's site. And I read nothing at all about how church teaching might be invoked on either side of the war discussion.

Of course, I write often about Iraq, as do other Catholic bloggers, and both Mark and Amy have had entries with hundreds of posts each on the topic. Two factors that may contribute to Mr. Feuerherd's misconception are that:

1. The blogosphere is fast. In fact, all of the time I spent debating the issue on Mark's site (with specific reference to the Catechism) back in July was the primary motivator for beginning my own blog. Feuerherd might have noticed this if he'd searched some sites' archives. On the other hand, he might have run into the following issue.

2. The blogosphere is incipient and loose, with each site constituting a patchwork of technologies and features. In fact, a switch of comment provider on Mark's part resulted in the disappearance into the cybervoid of at least two lengthy discussions on the topic.

But I'll cut Mr. Feuerherd some slack — St. Blogs does have quite a learning curve. (To determine whether you are one of the initiated, check out Kairos's list of criteria.)

Posted by Justin Katz @ 04:25 PM EST

3 comments

Not having read the article, I don't know, but perhaps you're cutting them too much slack. I have read opinions about the possibility of war with Iraq on quite a few blogs; some even posted the tenets of the just war doctrine and tried to demonstrate how one with Iraq either did or did not stand up. I've been surprised by the astuteness of the Catholic blog world. Anyway, enjoyed stopping by your site. Many sharp observations.

William Luse @ 11/16/2002 07:28 PM EST

The author's search seemed relatively limited, and it does take a while to find one's way through to the "lesser" blogs. It's hard to tell how these articles come about; it could have been on-demand, involving the bare minimum of research.

Thanks for the compliment, by the way. As you note, there are many great blog writers out there. Professional writers should take note and keep on top of their game.

Justin Katz @ 11/17/2002 10:32 PM EST

The Commonweal writer claims he spent weeks perusing St. Blog's, yet came across only one comment on Iraq. He must have been working from a limited blogroll.

A Google search today on "catholic" "blog" "iraq" returns 4,470 documents. And a search on "st. blog's" "iraq" returns 206. All in mere seconds.

There has been a great deal of comment on the Iraq topic. The writer doesn't appear to have been looking too hard to find it.

Mark Sullivan @ 11/18/2002 11:37 AM EST