Sunday 7 April 2013

Off the Beaten Path: A blog author I liked disappears ... Freyr.

Hello Everyone.

I just caught something online that saddens me a little, unfortunate, but these things do happen on the blogosphere when multiple bloggers share one domain for publishing.

One of the blogs I keep up with is Toronto Catholic WITNESS, a group of formerly 4, now three men, who post on traditional Catholic issues on their blog and operate in my archdiocese. They used to apparently have an apostolate that was active in some sort of lectures or something. One of the Latin Mass attendees who has come to the St. Patrick's Gregorian Choir Masses I serve, does remember when they were more active in their apostolate, and this was before I started any serving period in October 2011, so it must be true. They might have a book group or something at St. Vincent de Paul too. I think the last time I was there, I saw some Saturday morning 1x/month group led by them on a bulletin board??? Please verify this for me someone. Comment or e-mail, simple and sweet.

Anyways, I am looking on their site, and what used to be 4, is now three men. In their entry at the top of their page, I was like, ``Where did Freyr go?". I had to see if this was just stupidity or true, so I scroll down to the contributor page, and sure enough, Freyr has been deleted. As for his posts, thankfully they are still in the dustbins of the archives, however, they might disappear in future of me writing this. The last post that this author wrote is here.

Now, why am I even bothering to care or write about this? I mean, internet spats and author booting happens all the time, even on Catholic web portals/blogs. In fact last year, I got to witness this first hand on a blog I used to read frequently, Vox Nova. There used to be an author, Henry Karlson, and some other guy who was more mild mannered, but they got into nasty bickerfests that were viewable in public comments as well as the "back rooms" of the blog so to speak. Eventually, Vox Nova's collective authors decided to kick the both of them off the page, their posts likely removed, or hard to search for now. So it's no new thing to me.

So while this kind of behaviour is nothing new to me, I am a little bit disappointed because I did enjoy that particular author of the four. Yes, its quite a controversy to pick your name after a Norse Fertility God and post on a traditional catholic blog, but of the four authors, he had the most balanced posts I'd say. In addition, he was clear he wasn't an EF preferring individual of the four, in fact he preferred the Novus Ordo Mass (gasp! you're thinking: Julian you hypocrite! You should be flogged with 40 lashes by the EF liturgical police for violating the trad code!). It was great to balance out the other posters liturgically in that manner. Also for the most part, his commentary was insightful, and not piss-potty. Not to mention I liked certain things in his profile: Anime! (Yes!) , Lord of the Rings (you score +40 in my good books if you love that!). Also, when Pope Francis was elected to the See of Peter, he immediately came out with a correct analysis of the situation. And finally, I am glad to see that he likewise shares my disdain with the hypocrisy exhibited by those on both far right and left sides of the spectrum in the institutional church, as seen here.

And maybe all those things I've mentioned were why he has disappeared from the blog. Sadly, there was no notice of retirement from the blog, or a reason ... coupled with some of the content of his postings and certain "comments" in the posting comboxes, maybe he just wasn't a "good fit" and left. Then again his profile shows he's "retired" so maybe he just wants to get away from the computer and I dunno, read a few more good books or do whatever retirees do, and leave the computer blogging to some young bucks like myself. I can hope its the latter. Regardless, it's too bad Freyr is gone from WITNESS. Your posts were excellent.

Now, I know that a number of you are searching for me specifically in my search word hits. Further, I know a number of you report to each other about what I post in my blog. So I'm going to make this clear. If a member of the current WITNESS troupe desires to contact me, I will accept one communication to my e-mail from any of them, and they can use an alternate e-mail address to conceal their true identities, to, if they choose, explain the departure of my admired blogging author charitably. Something as simple as "It just didn't work out between us" or "He just didn't fit with our goals and mandate" or "he's retired and wants more than just a computer screen" will suffice, and I will be as happy as a kite at that. Freyr also, should he choose, can happily write to me at my blog address, and I would be glad to keep in touch with him. Oh ... and read my blog rules. Come to think of it ... I think I will move that to become a main page at the right side of my main blog page. So it's clearer to everyone.

Pax, Julian.

UPDATE April 10, 2013

NOOOOOO!!! My beloved Freyr is being held hostage by ultra-liberals! And they are vegan hippies to boot. See here: http://torontocatholicwitness.blogspot.ca/2013/04/news-flash-freyr-being-held-captive.html
Someone should alert the Vatican authorities!

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