About the Pontificator
I’ve been reading the Pontificator’s blog for over a year now. I’ve even commented a few times on various posts. Recently, Mr. Kimel announced that he is closing off comments on his blog. It looks like he will be ordained a R.C. Priest, and his life will take him and his family in other directions.
In a certain way I always felt intellectually inferior to those who posted at Pontifications. Things were well thought out, described, defended, and debated.
When you encounter that type of community you open yourself to various reactions. You can be offended, angry, challenged, intrigued, or even converted. I felt challenged and intrigued.
When I started blogging I used Google’s Blogspot. The simplicity and beauty (clean lines, easy to read text, not a lot of visual noise) of Pontifications challenged me to switch to WordPress as my publishing tool. More recently, Mr. Kimel’s switch to Macs moved me to consider a switch. My wife and children are now on Macs and I use the kids’ Mac Mini. While I still regularly use my PC, I await a MacBook Pro.
Above the mundane, the quotes from the Fathers, the debate between Roman Catholics and the Orthodox, and Mr. Kimel’s perspectives provided me with insight, challenged lazy thinking, and told me that I cannot sit on simplistic platitudes about my Church. There are too many people out there with enough apologetics to blow me out of the water. I was challenged to gird up my loins and prepare.
I’ve used points raised at Pontifications as fertilizer for growing my homilies (look at this week’s homily for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time and its tie in to Mr. Kimel’s challenge to preach predestination).
There are certain things at Pontifications that annoyed people. I never found much annoying. I took it all in light of its purpose, and from whence it came. Mr. Kimel is, after all, a convert from Anglicanism. He has the spirit of a convert, just as I have for the PNCC.
I never much cared for all the discussion about Anglicanism, but that was his hurt point. After all, a blog, even if run by the Pope, is a personal endeavor, an insight into personal thoughts and feelings. It is a publicly shared journal —“ and journals work best when they help us discover ourselves and grow. I hope Mr. Kimel has found growth and edification through his blog.
I wish Mr. Kimel well as he enters, once and for all, the Holy Priesthood. I pray that he continues to post his thoughts and insights. I know that they will challenge my thinking and that they will help me grow.
The com-box discussions were interesting and educational and the posts often erudite but after a while I stopped reading Pontifications because, true to the slang meaning of the name, after Kimel switched churches and he started cheering for the Novus Ordo, sometimes at the expense of his and my native tradition, it got rather boring and a bit hurtful. (If I wanted that I’d pay to get EWTN.)
I understand that, and experienced the same.
Reading what Mr. Kimel wrote gave me an appreciation for his insight and thoughts. As I noted, his work and words inspired me – and they still do. Some of the com-box stuff did that as well. Eventually, I started ignoring the com-boxes. That’s why his decision makes little difference to me, and why I hope he continues to post.
I think Mr. Kimel allowed the com-boxes to go their own way. I didn’t see him intervening all too often. That may be why they degenerated into an us vs. them lack of dialog.
I’ve had that experience in R.C. centered classes I’ve taken, and books I’ve read. The text dissolves into a sort of:
‘Blah blah, blah blah blah (on-point), and remember the Pope and the Immaculate Conception, more blah blah (on-point), and the Pope and his universal jurisdiction, blah blah, and St. Peter and the Pope his successor… and remember Mary is the model…’
When everything hinges on and revolves around the Pope and Marian doctrine it gets a little tiresome. The discussions end up more like the Monty Python’s skit on arguments. “Yes it is. No it is not.” They become simple negation rather than discussion. The Pope and Mary become the lens through which everything must be seen and defined. If you are outside that narrowly defined view – too bad.
I think everyone going there understood the R.C. Church’s view on the Pope. After all, the blog is called Pontifications. If they didn’t see that, they could have checked out the Pontificator’s Laws. Why it had to be discussed ad-nauseam was beyond me. As with any dialog the Pope simply is the elephant in the room. You get pulled into discussing that issue and become blind to any and every other issue.
Some of the Ochlophobist’s com-box stuff hit that on the head. Certain people just took an EWTN, ultramontane view and that didn’t help dialog at any level.
Again, I think Mr. Kimel presented his views clearly – and succinctly. Others did so as well, engaging their intellect in reasoned arguments. Unfortunately some simply used his points as a take-off point for their own agendas.