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| Illustration: Dan Salamida |
Some news today in the Catholic blogosphere! Well, actually there's a lot of Catholic news out there today but here are two items that I didn't want to pass by without notice.
Deacon Bill Ditewig who writes Deacons Today has decided to sign off, at least for the time being. Citing his many family and ecclesial responsibilities, his writing in a number of other venues, and some pushback in his comboxes, Bill has chosen to close his page. Deacons Today has been on my sidebar for a long time and I'll miss Bill's work.
Deacon Greg Kandra, a good friend of this page, has decided to close his comboxes "for the foreseeable future... maybe for good." The author of The Deacon's Bench adds that he'll "revisit this policy later in the summer." Noting that he's decided to "take a vacation from vitriol," he writes:
This has been coming for a while. I’ve shut down comments for a week or two in the past, to have a breather, but the resultant serenity doesn’t last for long. On some days, keeping track of the torrent of comments has become a full-time job, and I’ve found repeatedly that the combined badgering, sniping and vitriol too often create an environment that can only be called toxic. I just don’t have the time or mental energy to deal with it.Although I read Greg's page seven days a week, it's been a while since I've regularly checked into his comboxes -- on account of just the reasons he mentions. You'll recall that recently I shifted the focus of my own page here, no longer posting on current events in the Catholic world. I'm gladly leaving to others the job of reporting the news and managing the comments such posting can engender.
Deacon Bill, I hope that one day you'll find the time to come back to the blogosphere!
And Deacon Greg, if you can accept just one more comment:
I'm glad you're still there!
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Thank you for the kind words, Fr. A!
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for being a friend of The Bench :-)
DGK
Dear Fr. A.,
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for your support! I hope to be back at some point, and I hope that point is sooner rather than later!
God bless,
Bill
("DDD")
I think we're all exhausted from and fed up with the vitriolic commentary.
ReplyDeleteHand-to-God, only two days ago I was thinking about how you so gracefully declined to participate in this stuff and reaffirmed your commitment to blogging about prayer and faith.
As a blogger who is a convert as well as a sociologist and culture critic, I've become increasing torn between wanting to speak truth to power with as much humor as I can muster, and withdrawing altogether.
What I have decided to do is focus more diligently on the spiritual practices that nourished me in the past and hope they inform whatever Woe is We commentary I trot out.
As ever, grateful for your ministry.
Thanks Bill, Greg and Meredith for your good words!
ReplyDeleteMeredith: hang in there!
It seems to me that men who are ordained, deacons or priests, already have full lives. If they add on what is virtually another career, that of blogger, it must be hard to keep control of their own content as well as the contributions of others. I suspect that a slowdown in blogging, as well as a break from moderation, would improve the spiritual lives of the bloggers themselves and of their readers -- by giving the blogging deacons (and even blogging Pastors) more time to reflect before they write.
ReplyDeleteMary