Blogging, of course, is a form of vanity. Any blogger who says otherwise is deceiving only himself. I am no different, in that I believe I have something meaningful to contribute to the zeitgeist.
Like Robert Graves' Claudius, I dedicate the content on this blog to "an extremely remote posterity." But I (happily) labor under no misconceptions: much as I hope that "my eventual readers of a hundred generations, or more, will feel themselves directly spoken to," blogs are written on water, and perhaps the best I can hope for is that some kind soul years hence will somehow stumble upon these writings and equate them to graffiti on the walls of Pompeii.
More to the point, who am I? And why on earth am I laying claim to your precious time? Why would anyone in their right mind read these ramblings?
(N.B. If it makes you feel any better, I'm very rarely in my right mind. That's why God created bourbon--it tends to settle things inside the brainpan; to see things as ridiculous as they probably are, even helping one to be sanguine about the fate of humanity for a few fleeting minutes.)
The short story is that I've been reading a lot of Catholic blogs these past few years--across the spectrum, too, whether Fr. Dwight Longnecker, Steve Skojec, Rocco Palmo, Father Z, Rorate Caeli, or Ed Peters. They've all inspired me to join the conversation. But what's my unique angle? A sort of "reckless courage" fueled by Divine Love, as dear old von B. said.
Perhaps the best way to describe it is that I come from the nexus of +Joseph Ratzinger, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Walker Percy. I live and love the fullness of the Catholic faith, from the Mass, to Byzantine icons and mosaics, to the writings of its greatest saints, doctors, theologians and lay writers--all of which, in my opinion, is undergirded by tradition.
This brings me to another founding element of St. John's Tower. Like many tradition-minded Catholics over the past year, I have been somewhat uneasy about Pope Francis. What concerns me about him is that his reign has been marked more by uncertainty than by any concrete aspect of the Catholic faith. There has been no shortage of speculation on who Pope Francis is and what he represents, and I'll delve into some of that in future posts. But suffice it to say that tradition--the rock on which many of us have relied on during the reigns on Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict--appears to be in jeopardy.
As such, the upcoming Synod on the Family, I think, may very well represent a key moment in Church history.
Catholics who take tradition seriously need to keep their eyes and ears open. A tower is structure from which to keep watch over all that transpires below. The venerable St. John's Tower is the tallest structure in Vatican City after the dome of St. Peter's. Thus the name for this blog.
Finally, St. John's Tower should not be mistaken for an ultra-traditionalist blog. While I fully support the summorum pontificum affirming the Traditional Latin Mass, and feel strongly that this form must be made more available to the faithful, that is not the sole cause to be taken up on this blog.
Nor will this blog be a constant rant about every violation of the Catechism. I venerate tradition, and I'm as Orthodox as they come. But I ain't perfect. I'm a sinner--a jackass, really--who'd be the last face you'd plaster on the cover of The Catholic Standard as 'Knight Holy and Exemplar.' While I won't shrink from calling out that which is egregious (balloon mass, anyone?), I also believe, like Chesterton, that though "solemnity flows out of men naturally ... laughter is a leap."
No comments:
Post a Comment