Yesterday we had our own mini-WikiLeaks experience. I posted what I thought was a fairly measured and, I hope, charitable, comment on the news from the Priory of Our Lady of Walsingham, drawing attention to the absence, as I saw it, of any concrete provision for religious in what we know of the plans for the Ordinariate.
Within an hour of posting we were besieged. Emails, telephone calls and Twitter DMs flooded in, all offering to put us right on this detail or that, urging us to take sides, telling us “what really happened” (the accounts don’t tally), and so on and so forth. I was left wondering whether anyone had read what I actually wrote, so anxious were some of our correspondents to urge their own view.
Debate is a very good thing , and when it is conducted in the open with civility and good humour, can add greatly to understanding; but I don’t much care for attempts to apply pressure behind the scenes, nor will I tolerate attempts to blacken the reputation of others. As I said yesterday, we don’t know any of the people concerned but “they deserve our prayers and at least a suspension of judgement”. I mean that. I don’t think anyone outside the community, not in possession of the full facts, is in a position to judge either those who have gone or those who have remained. You may disagree, but we can surely agree to disagree agreeably?
If you are inclined to argue the point, please look at the title of this post again. It is there to remind others as well as myself why the community bothers to blog. The good, the true and the beautiful reflect more of God than do rivalry, contention and point-scoring. Yes, of course, we fly a few kites in our blog posts and I daresay the imp of mischievous humour will never be entirely absent, but our aim is to build up rather than knock down, to stimulate thought rather than temper. I should be very sorry if anyone were to think that the the views expressed in iBenedictines were anything other than what they are: the world seen from the cloister, sometimes a little quirkily, often imperfectly, but always, I hope, with compassion. It is not a bad ideal for a blog, is it?




