Editorial Note

Arturo Vasquez, who I'll recommend once again, has posted a "Brief Editorial Note" over at Reditus: A Chronicle of Aesthetic Christianity that I think has a lot of good points that could equally apply here to my attitudes:

I don’t know if I would consider this a Catholic or even a Christian blog. Truth be told, I have been prone recently to remove the term, “Christianity” from the title of this blog altogether. This has not been due to an increase in skepticism on my part, or to some sort of crisis of faith. It is more that I have a concern that such a title will give the reader the wrong idea. Really, blogs that pretend to be “Catholic” or “Christian” lead one to certain expectations which I do not feel that I can fulfill here.

I think I could put it something like this: the expectation of a “Catholic blog” or Catholic website is that it will put more of the “Church” into your life. Many post appropriate things according to the Church calendar, their own “lay sermons” concerning a favored subject of the day, or even a quote from the Pope or chic theological figure that they find most appealing. I sometimes do that as well, but it is so peripheral to what I write that I almost force myself not to. No, the point of my blog is not to put more “Church” in your life, but to get the Church out of it. Or rather, that institution that we think seems to own the truth and beauty which are only “on loan” to us.

That has really been the case since Adam, really: the idea that the people are too stupid to think for themselves and that anything really worth studying is the property of the few. As a hopeless elitist, I happen to agree with that sentiment. But when I feel the wrong ideas are getting the upper hand, and when I feel that technocracy even in the form of crosier and mitre are leading me in the wrong direction, I try to find a diplomatic way to weasel out of its program. The main paradigm of this blog, then, is one of autonomy and not dependence; it is one of communion without the threat of micromanagement.

There is a beautiful saying coming from colonial Latin America that I have taken to heart since I first read it as an undergrad. It goes: obedezco, pero no cumplo. I obey, but I don’t carry out. Perhaps I am too much of a modernist or “crypto-Protestant” (?) to “trust the Church”. And maybe I do not trust myself sufficiently to become a Latino Richard McBrien. Or maybe I am just a slob. In any event, I would just prefer Pope and priest to stay out of my business. The Pope for me is a little holy card of a man who lives far away, and I hope that it stays that way.

I largely feel the same way as most of this.

Especially as (it turns out) someone did go tattling to one of my priests about my blog. Seriously, who does that?! What adult goes and "tells on" another adult to a priest about an independent blog they write, especially when there is no heresy? Obsequious little fascists, that's who.