You might recall that last year a priest named Fr. Joseph O’Leary wrote an essay posted on his blog entitled “Rise of the Neocaths,” attacking a whole panoply of Catholic bloggers as something called a neo-Catholics (I wasn’t included in the list). Recently he followed up with another essay entitled “The Decline of the Neocaths.” (Thanks to Christopher Blosser at
Against the Grain for the links.)
Really, it’s your standard liberal screed against conservatives, whether religious, political, or whatever. Still if you’re interested in a response to the original essay, Teofilo de Jesus has his 6-part response now available online as a PDF.
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His original piece wasn’t well thought-out, so it’s not surprising that he’s not seeing the same “trend” he imagined before. When Amy Welborn is cited as part of a puritanical crowd, somebody’s judgment is not working.
Hey, RC, he forgot to mention me too. What’s a guy gotta do to get a reputation around here?
O’Leary is a regular (and relentless) contributor at the weblog of Professor Christopher Blosser. Not just one, but five or six or seven hits on the combox in a row, like a man on a mission never to have an unpublished thought.
I wish I could be a priest too, so I could have that kind of time on my hands.
Silly. Allow me to say that “reports of the NeoCath demise have been GREATLY exaggerated.”
Spirit of Vatican II likes to say that “bullying” is the “baseline” of NeoCatholicism. Strange, but that’s what most non-Catholics think of our Church as a whole. Intellectual superiority is not bullying. The blogosphere is an arena of ideas, not actions. The good priest has no idea what “NeoCath” bloggers do in their spare time with regard to “social action”. My wife and I are extremely active in assisting the poor.