Just one more

The Anchoress comments on the Vatican blog meeting. This is an excerpt from remarks she was invited to deliver. (Brave lady! That's one speaking engagement I would not have taken on for the world).

In a sense the church is as wide and deep as the Internet, but wisely constrained by the boundaries of 2000 years of well-wrought reason, and the Truth of Christ, which overcomes all of our illusions and pretenses.

Understanding that, bloggers and social media entrepreneurs have a duty to avoid the sort of narrowness of thought that is endemic to the echo chamber; we are fortunate to have a pope who has proved himself, in his book-length interviews with Peter Seewald and elsewhere, to be willing to put any idea throughout the wringer of Catholic analysis, because he is confident that a thorough discussion, rooted on the truth of Christ, will always lead us to the ends of Catholic orthodoxy, and so Pope Benedict is fearless and open, and in Christ’s truth, we can afford to be, too!

[...] Let’s face it, when the ego is ignited and the passions are galloping, we all too easily ignore our own better angels, and sacrifice charity for the satisfaction of a what we consider to be a well-deserved jab at some poor misguided other.

[...] The church needs us, to assist in evangelization; she needs us to disseminate information and especially to correct information which can often become distorted in the press [...] The church needs us to be where the sheep are grazing, so that we may help them find the better pastures.


But you here in Rome, we need you, too — to keep reminding us that there is a wideness in God’s mercy; that conformity, if and when it comes, must always begin first from a place of freedom, because Christ freely died for us, and that faith wrought without freedom is worthless in the face of his gift, freely given. We need you to remind us that we are called, ultimately, to oneness, as Christ prayed that all may be one.

Amen!
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