Blog Project

[Fish and Bread]

As a reader of blogs, I've noticed that many of the more popular Catholic blogs have a strongly partisan pro-Republican political slant. The rare liberal blogs usually conflict with what the Vatican teaches.

It seems as though there would be a "market" for a Catholic blog that is orthodox, but approaches political issues in a progressive way. For example, it would be pro-life, but not anti-Democrat. It would explore a lot of issues like poverty and health care in a liberal way, but also not be predominantly political. It would look at things like the Catholic teaching like torture is an intrinsic evil, and why that theologically could be considered to have equal standing with some of the alleged Catholic Answers "non-negotiables" and so forth. But it would also explore issues that are completely non-political.

I personally don't have the inclination to type up 5 blog entries every day. Inevitably, when I start blogs, they slow to a crawl and then stop being updated at all. However, with modern blog hosting sites, there is the technology where you can have 5 or 10 people who are all part of a "team" blog where everyone can post entries and keep it frequently updated without it turning into a big burden on any one person.

I'm not saying I'm definitely going to do this, or committing to anything, but I think it would be worth exploring.

*If* I decided to go forward with this, would anyone here be willing to join the team and contribute entries on a regular basis? Maybe someone would be willing to start one themselves so I don't have to consider doing it and can just read it.

Right now, it's just an idea. I'm exploring whether or not there's the interest among potential partners to consider going forward with it. Obviously it would be a non-profit non-commercial venture on blogspot or someplace like that.

 

[geocajun]

I'll throw my hat in. I for one would love to offer a catholic POV on why republican philosophy and catholic philosophy are generally at odds with one another.

 

[colleen]

I think this is a great idea, Fish! Can I make a suggestion? I wouldn't be beholden to any political party (or create an immediate divide between "progressives" and "conservatives"), and instead embrace a Catholic political identity. Then you could have bloggers that specify in issues important to Catholic without any need to be loyal to any party. For example Geo would probably be an excellent person to post about universal health care as he has become somewhat of a subject on the area. Davidnic could blog about the pro-life program he has become so interested in and educated about, etc.

 

[faerieevaH]

I think Colleen has excellent sugestions. And if you want someone to blog now and again on less political but beautiful issues, I think you should invite her!

 

[Fish and Bread]

I'll throw my hat in. I for one would love to offer a catholic POV on why republican philosophy and catholic philosophy are generally at odds with one another.

Good. I was hoping that you'd be one of the people to considering signing up if we wind up doing this. My hope is to make the blog identity overall include more folks like you than people like me in terms of parish involvement and so forth.

I don't really have a strong desire to get my words or personality out there. I'm actually probably not the ideal person to be coming up with this, but I have a strong sense of vision of what a blog I'd like to read would be like, so I'm kind of taking point. Ideally, though, I'd only be one of a bunch of contributors, most of whom were much more Catholic than I am, if that makes any sense.

Mainly I just see a huge gulf in that I don't really see any Catholic blogs that seem to care about issues like poverty and health care as much as other issues, which seems odd because the Catholic Church historically has taken a strong lead on those issues. Catholic hospitals were extremely important historically in the United States, for example, and people like Mother Theresa have done tremendous work on issues like world wide poverty. But when it comes to today's political blogs, very few will even argue that, for example, universal health care is an issue that Catholics should strongly consider when going into the voting booth.

I think this is a great idea, Fish! Can I make a suggestion? I wouldn't be beholden to any political party (or create an immediate divide between "progressives" and "conservatives"), and instead embrace a Catholic political identity. Then you could have bloggers that specify in issues important to Catholic without any need to be loyal to any party. For example Geo would probably be an excellent person to post about universal health care as he has become somewhat of a subject on the area. Davidnic could blog about the pro-life program he has become so interested in and educated about, etc.

I think that's a good point. I also don't want this to be solely a political blog. I'd love to have some contributors talk about things like prayer and the liturgical year and so on and so forth. Ideally, it'd be a general Catholic blog with a special focus on politics versus a general political blog that happens to have Catholic political point of view. I think that would attract more readers.

Part of that could also include having some contributors who are non-Democrats and even non-liberals, folks of a more moderate persuasion. Some of what I've seen from Davidnic would be great -- he'd be amazing if he were willing to do it. But at the same time, I don't want to have a bunch of contributors going out and advocating trimming social programs and how it's necessary for all Catholics to vote for McCain. So, I think we could go ahead and include moderates, but with the understanding that they wouldn't be advocating the "Catholic Answers" positions on how Catholics should determine who to vote for or advocating an overtly conservative approach to economics and poverty.

All of this is in flux and subject to change. I'm not 100% sure this will go forward at all -- if I do it, it'll be a big time commitment for me. But I'm also excited about it at the same time. I think this thread is probably a way to guage interest and figure out what it would involve to go ahead with it and so forth.

 

[Fish and Bread]

Alright, I think I'm going to do this. I signed up for a URL and everything:

http://viamediacatholic.blogspot.com/

Jason, if you want to PM your e-mail address, I'll send you an invitation to join as a regular contribute. Feel free to start posting as soon as you're ready if you do decide to sign up.

Everyone else is welcome to leave comments on blog posts, of course.

Anyone else who is interested in being a formal part of the project, let me know.

 

[Fish and Bread]

I'll throw my hat in. I for one would love to offer a catholic POV on why republican philosophy and catholic philosophy are generally at odds with one another.

Are you still interested? If so, ll I need is an e-mail address and it can launch an e-mail from the site that would let you sign up as a regular blogger on VMC.

 

[MrJim]

It seems as though there would be a "market" for a Catholic blog that is orthodox, but approaches political issues in a progressive way.

I'm reading it but it still seems to come off as a pro-democrat blog. Isn't there a third/better way?

 

[Fish and Bread]

I'm reading it but it still seems to come off as a pro-democrat blog. Isn't there a third/better way?

Via media actually roughly translates as "middle way" in Latin. Part of the concept is that the blog is supposed to be a middle ground between Catholic blogs that lean very Republican, and the more liberal Catholic sites (I haven't found any blogs that meet this description) that are openly pro-choice on abortion and pro-woman priests and so forth. The idea is to be doctrinally in line with the Vatican, but politically towards the center-left, with more of a focus on poverty and working folks than might be typical in a blog like this.

Part of the thinking behind it is that I firmly believe Catholicism is supportive of some principles that are typically considered liberal like government aid to the poor, caution in going to war, and human rights being accorded to prisoners and so forth, and that there is no doctrinally reason a Catholic couldn't vote for Democrats (In fact, they used to routinely) or liberal Republicans. But there wasn't a blog that addressed that point of view, and as a sometimes reader of blogs, I found it frustrating.

I do want to go beyond politics on the blog, though, and did do a post about some of the feast days coming up in fall. Truth be told, I am a much better political writer than I am a religious writer, and I'd really like to get more folks to contribute to the blog who are better at the religious aspects. If I can't do that (and even if I can), I am still going to make more of an effort to focus on more purely religious topics to provide some more balance at some point.

If I'm going to be completely honest, I probably should admit: Blogging isn't really my thing in the first place. I'm doing it in part because it'll be less annoying for me to start my own blog than to sit at my computer grumbling about the other blogs are how they falsely present Catholicism as a branch of the Republican Party. I see a need and really feel it's something missing in the public sphere. In an ideal world, someone else would do it instead. But in the end, sometimes if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. I'm hoping to at least get a team of bloggers together to where I don't have to completely carry the load of posting several entries each day, but time will tell.

 

[geocajun]

Are you still interested? If so, ll I need is an e-mail address and it can launch an e-mail from the site that would let you sign up as a regular blogger on VMC.

sent my email address

 

[Fish and Bread]

sent my email address

Received it. I sent a brief followup e-mail and also added you on the blogger site. If you don't get the automated message from the site shortly allowing you to join the blog, please let me know and I'll tell it to send it again. My past experience has been that sometimes automated systems like this can be a little buggy (or get caught in spam filters).

 

[krstlros]

I'd be interested, Fish. Like you, I've started blogs before, but as usual fell by the waste side.

If you don't mind a sporatic poster, I'd love to join. Will be sending you my email.

 

[Fish and Bread]

I'd be interested, Fish. Like you, I've started blogs before, but as usual fell by the waste side.

If you don't mind a sporatic poster, I'd love to join. Will be sending you my email.

Invitation sent via the blogspot website. I also sent a brief PM your way.