Catholic Blogging

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/july-31-2015/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-catholic-blogosphere/

Damian Thompson has an interesting, and accurate, perspective on the rise and fall of Catholic blogging.  I noticed the same myself.  During the reign of Pope Benedict, there was definitely a sense of momentum behind conservative Catholic blogs.  It seemed like we had everything going our way. If our Bishops were squishy libs and our parishes rang with Marty Haugen music, at least the Pope was on our side and eventually things would be put right.

Father Z memorably described the process going on as "brick by brick" with a cute picture showing Benedict XVI walling off the heretics and malcontents in teh Church.

When Francis was elected, there certainly was a change in momentum.  But even in the year before that, I noticed that things were starting to change.  The Curt Jester stopped posting as many funny bits.  The Creative Minority Report started becoming less creative and more cranky.  First the National Catholic Register, then Patheos started aggregating alot of the quirky blogs that made the Catholic Blogosphere great and, basically, ruining them. As a simple example, both Father Longenecker and The Crescat were much better blogs when they were independent than as they are now on Patheos.  (it's not for nothing that people refer to that site as "Pathetic").

When Francis was elected Pope, some of the blogs that were flirting with extremism went all the way.  Creative Minority Report became a non-stop Francis-hate-fest.   Suddenly, conservative realized that their Bishops were still squishy libs and their parishes were still infested with Marty Haugen but now the Pope wasn't on their side, either.  The image above from Father Z's blog was not so much Benedict walling off the heretics, but the dominant liberal caste walling off Benedict and the rest of us with him.

But given the movements before Francis' election, I'm not sure things would have turned out differently.  Blogging is hard, lonely work.  I can't blame people for signing up with Patheos because then they at least get paid a little for it.  But you have to do it for yourself.  And by 2013, blogs were starting to give way to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and the rest which are a lot more interactive and much less work, because the focus is on the sound bite not extended rambling pieces like this. I gave it up myself for almost a year and only really started again to work out some ideas I had for RCIA.

It's a little sad: the passing of an era.  I can't say that Benedict started it and Francis ended it. It's probably just the time that they were sitting on Peter's throne.  I do actually miss Damian Thompson's Holy Smoke blog, perhaps most of all.  It seemed like that was the definitive end of the Catholic Blogging Adventure, to me.