Too Far from Rome

A couple of days after my last post I moved into a new house and had to go a few days without internet access. This rather strange experience gave me the idea of undertaking an “internet fast,” which I’ve broken only three times to check my email (not reading your email for four weeks = very bad idea!) and now to write this post and download some of my online subscriptions. So that’s why I haven’t posted anything in so long. It’s been a good experience, and I intend to continue it for another month, at least.

Being offline has given me more time to focus on other things, including my meditation practice, which always seems to lapse in the summer (i.e., when I don’t work and therefore don’t have much of a schedule to live by). I’ve also been doing a lot of reading, a lot of writing, a lot of thinking.

In addition, I’ve also decided to end my active participation in the sacramental life of the Church. Like my internet fast, this was precipitated by my moving house, but it’s actually been a long time coming; I suspect that anyone who has read my blog for a while will understand that.

There was a time when I thought it was important for progressives to remain in the Church. I’m not so sure about that anymore. Cathleen Kaveny, in a recent Commonweal column, wrote about others who have come to the same conclusion:

From the perspective of these Catholics, doctrine and practice are not developing but withering. But why not stay and fight? First, because they think remaining appears to involve complicity in evil; second, because fighting appears to be futile; and, third, because they don’t like what fighting is doing to them. The fight is diminishing their ability to hear the gospel and proclaim that good news. The fight is depriving them of the peace of Christ.

I certainly recognise myself in that description.

I’m going to return to blogging, maybe in a month or so. But my next post on this particular blog will be my last; it will provide a link to my new blog.

PP