Per Christum Catholic Blog

From the venerable blog 3d Blog from the Sun the following has been offered:

Imprimatur for New Media
Catholic New Media?

The also very worthy blog Musings of a Pertinacius Papist has reprinted with permission Tom Bethell’s well crafted article “The New Technology is for Amatures” which appeared originally in the New Oxford Review.

The questions asked in all of the above largely have to do with what the role of new media is for Catholics, and how this transition is taking place.

Of course this interests me. To turn an old joke “Once I couldn’t spell ‘blogger’, now I are one!”

I found myself transitioning to a preference for new media on the basis that there is a certain economy and “checks and balances” system to the blogosphere.

An oft repeated warning of the ability of “Joe Blogger” to disseminate knowingly or unknowingly information of questionable veracity or outright untruth seems to ring hollow when it is examined how things “really work”.

To be sure, there is nothing to present the self-styled Patriarch of Akron, Ohio from creating a blog that espouses flat-earth-geo-centrism. In fact that sort of thing is out there. In fact it is also the case that no one pays much attention to it and when it DOES pop up on the radar, it will also appear in the cross-hairs of about 1000 other bloggers who will not suffer the indignity of being lied to or deceived. Articles presented on Per Christum have been picked up and discussed elsewhere by those who agree and disagree. We have done the same.

I have also found that when I do read print media, I don’t like to be far from the web! Given the linear limitations of the print media versus the exponential possibilities of new media, if I want more info on a subject matter, I can click on a hyperlink and explore it, rather than counting on “getting all I need to know” based on the judgment of the author, the editor, and space limitations.

You also run into the issue of certain news considered “too niche market” to receive column inches.

For example, days ago a bishop and 3 dozen clergy originally from the Assyrian Church of the East - which has been out of communion with the Apostolic See for 16 centuries - have made their intention clear - they seek full communion with the Catholic Church and to be united to the Chaldean Catholic counterpart.

It has been through the blogosphere, including the bishop’s own webpage http://www.marbawai.com - that much of this has been disseminated. Much to my chagrin, when googling for official news outlets to find news about this matter, it is only on the second page of returned “hits” at google does a news story appear that does NOT come from www.marbawai.com - lo and behold, it is our entry Assyrians Elect To Enter Into Full Commnunion w/ Catholic Church.

The utter failure of the mainstream media to pick this story up within almost two weeks of the vote has left me utterly befuddled. That being said, I am proud that between Per Christum & Serge’s entries over at A Conservative Blog for Peace (A conservative blog for peace) have a good deal of info thanks to the comboxes and the research we have done and had done for us. (Interestingly, in the comboxes, many representatives of this movement themselves have shown up to make their case.)

Maybe I wear my Eastern Christian bias on my sleeve butI have little faith or trust in most print media sources to get the matter right, anyway! 10 years ago, the respectable Catholic World Report in an article on Eastern Catholic churches mentioned “Spanish Eastern Catholics” apparently misunderstanding the Greek Catholics of “Galicia” to be from “Galiza” in Spain rather than the region “Галичина/Galicja” in central Europe divided between Ukraine and Poland. Would that it were the case Greek Catholics were from “Galiza” they would have avoided Soviet persecution, and have good flan recipes!

Understand those were the reliable, professional, well edited, fact checking print media types! But we don’t expect every print outlet to have experts from every field on the payroll and writing for them. On occasion, head correspondants of major media outlets even treat us to such fanciful and outlandish reports as the much bally-hooed (and very wrong) Churches back plan to unite under Pope.

Sometimes the “amatures” have to step up.

Blog on, Catholic bloggers!