The ascent of blogs under Benedict; their decline under Francis?
That seems to be what is suggested by "Rising and Falling" (That the bones you have crushed may thrill, July 31, 2015). What? Have some simply despaired of any meaningful discourse? Is that it?
The author of the article (who apparently ran a blog he claims was quite popular but I've honestly never heard of) celebrates the fall of "angry, conservative Catholic" blogs which had their heyday in the reign of Pope Benedict and have since diminished in numbers under Francis.
I do think that he's right in two respects -- first, that comments boxes on blogs tend to be the residing place of some particularly nasty or crazy individuals, "trolls", etc. This is normative for blogs but online in general (just peruse the comments of most news websites). Also, his observation that some bloggers have moved to other avenues of social media besides blogs per se. In my own experience, the generation of bloggers that I grew up with has mostly retired and moved on to Facebook. (For example, Michael Liccione used to maintain a very good blog Sacramentum Vitae, but these days the meaningful discourse and insightful commentary associated with his blog now takes place chiefly on his Facebook page).
Plenty of good blogs and/or vehicles for good Catholic discourse persist and are thriving. New blogging collectives like OnePeterFive have surfaced; there is also Crisis Magazine, Public Discourse, Ethika Politika (not entirely Catholic but good reading); Opus Publicum (formerly Catholic now Orthodox); Sancrucesis (https://sancrucensis.wordpress.com/); The American Catholic (http://the-american-catholic.com/); Rorate Caeli; Creative Minority Report, et al.
1 comment:
The author of the article (who apparently ran a blog he claims was quite popular but I've honestly never heard of) celebrates the fall of "angry, conservative Catholic" blogs which had their heyday in the reign of Pope Benedict and have since diminished in numbers under Francis.
I do think that he's right in two respects -- first, that comments boxes on blogs tend to be the residing place of some particularly nasty or crazy individuals, "trolls", etc. This is normative for blogs but online in general (just peruse the comments of most news websites). Also, his observation that some bloggers have moved to other avenues of social media besides blogs per se. In my own experience, the generation of bloggers that I grew up with has mostly retired and moved on to Facebook. (For example, Michael Liccione used to maintain a very good blog Sacramentum Vitae, but these days the meaningful discourse and insightful commentary associated with his blog now takes place chiefly on his Facebook page).
Plenty of good blogs and/or vehicles for good Catholic discourse persist and are thriving. New blogging collectives like OnePeterFive have surfaced; there is also Crisis Magazine, Public Discourse, Ethika Politika (not entirely Catholic but good reading); Opus Publicum (formerly Catholic now Orthodox); Sancrucesis (https://sancrucensis.wordpress.com/); The American Catholic (http://the-american-catholic.com/); Rorate Caeli; Creative Minority Report, et al.
Post a Comment