Catholic uberblogger Amy Welborn
raises the question of how come left-wing Catholics gather in church
basements to caucus, while right-wing Catholics gather on the
blogosphere. It’s pretty obvious to me: generally speaking (and despite what the
secular media think), the Catholic Left holds most of the institutional
power within the American church, and that includes the Catholic media.
Until the advent of blogdom, there were very, very few media forums for
conservative Catholics to discuss the issues that matter most to us. Even
the established conservative Catholic press suffers, in most cases, from a
sort of political correctness that inhibits free discussion. As Amy points
out, the conservative Catholic blog explosion came directly as the result of
the advent of scandal in 2002, when many conservative Catholics were
desperate to learn what was going on in Boston and beyond, and comment on
it. We didn’t trust either the diocesan press or the secular media. Bloggers
like Amy, Mark Shea and others became reliable conduits of information, and
provided a place for us to talk (and argue — Lord how we argue) about what
was really happening in the Church, as distinct from what the secular media
and the official Catholic media said was happening. There was a demand for
conservative Catholic blogs, and folks like Welborn and Shea rushed to fill
it. In a way, though, the lack of power re: the institutional church
frees them up to hold a more freewheeling critical discussion. And that’s a
good thing.