Bones of Contention

If you're reading this on the day of issue, you'll notice the "Save the Liturgy, Save the World" logo on the sidebar. It was handsomely designed by Gerald Augustinus of The Cafeteria is Closed. The tagline is credited to Father John Zuhlsdorf of What Does The Prayer Really Say? and is a spin-off of a line from the NBC sci-fi thriller Heroes. (The way the tagline appears, it might just as easily say "Save the World, Save the Liturgy." I'd take a vote, but you'll all probably go over to Gerald's and stuff his comments box instead. Like that guy's got nothing better to do...)

The image will remain on the mwbh sidebar for the duration, to endorse the restoration of the sacred to Catholic worship.

Anyway, Father Z had a post today (click here), that ends with his lament: "I have deleted some comments and then closed the comments option. Frankly, I am dismayed at how foolish this became and how quickly. You discourage me." Ironically, the post is entitled "Article in The Tablet does nothing but pick a fight." (Yo, Padre, your first sign of trouble!) Even with the allegedly contentious comments removed, you would at least get some idea from the remaining responses of what went awry. But you don't. You really don't. And yet we mere mortals have disappointed him. Oh, cry me a river!

Now, don't get me wrong (and half the readers listed as "anonymous" invariably do), because I love his excellent commentaries on the orations in the Roman Missal as much as the next guy. But this is what kills me about some high-traffic bloggers. They want the traffic, they beg for it, they get it in spades, and then they start bitching about it. Even after that, and sometimes turning it off for a few days to run some errands, the huddled masses return, like so many lost children of Israel, and pick up where they left off. It is as if to say, "Hey, look, my pseudonym is up there with the cool people!"

You know what I tell these luminaries? The same thing I told The Queen two years ago: SEND THEM TO ME! I'd give anything for half the rancor and mayhem that these giants of Catholic blogdom must endure. I don't want to seem ungrateful for having been nominated for eight CBAs -- and if I hadn't voted for myself in all of them, who knows how pathetic the results would have been? -- but... what do they got that I ain't got?

Besides a book deal, a talk show on satellite radio, a pretty face...