A Turbulent Deacon

It's always the way, when you (or at least, I) do a list of (for example) blogs to award a prize to: waking up the next day and thinking, 'But what about…?'

I have already added one well-deserved extra to the list, but another blog I often read with interest and approval is written by that turbulent deacon, Nick Donnelly: Protect the Pope.

Not that I always agree with everything he writes (see for example, Patricius' analysis of a recent mis-step, here). And indeed, his latest post  seems to me to be rather harsh.

But that's not the point: I don't read - or recommend - people because I always agree with what they say. Rather, because I find them variously stimulating, thought-provoking, or entertaining.

It is easy to forget the atmosphere when Deacon Nick started his blog: it was before Pope Benedict's visit here, and the press was full of vitriol and misrepresentation. Protect the Pope was established to counter that, and dissect and correct many of the misrepresentations.

Since then it has developed, as blogs do, but with a similar locus of attention: countering misrepresentations of the Faith and championing orthodoxy. Notwithstanding the fact that I think he occasionally misses the target, overstates the case, or reads others through an overly-critical lens (none of which are faults to which I incline in the least, let it be understood!) I think Deacon Nick plays a very important role in the Catholic blogosphere.

This is the turbulence of my title, and is, of course, a reference to St Thomas à Beckett: when there is so much idiocy about, then turbulence of this kind is the correct response.