Not That He Needs My Endorsement...

But I wanted to say publicly how much I enjoy Patrick Madrid's blog. There are a lot of Catholic blogs with an obvious theme; there are a lot of Catholic blogs that scour the news and make it more widely known, with commentary; and there are a lot of Catholic blogs that simply stand as a daily journal of the writer's thoughts.

This blog, for instance, is a mix, as is Mr. Madrid's. It's just that I think he does it exceptionally well. His insight, when offered, is instructive. His choice of news to highlight is well-selected. His humor posts are actually funny.

I like the blog, in other words. It is an effort outside his more official apologetics ministry that allows him to follow the tangents of the day.

I actually met Mr. Madrid at St. Francis de Sales Oratory after a weekday Mass in 2007 (or 2008-- I'm getting old). It was nice to see him there. Rosalind Moss (before taking the veil and moving to St. Louis) had just been there a few weeks earlier, and I figured that if I saw Karl Keating or Jimmy Akin turn up it was a sign that the parousia wasn't far off. In any event, Patrick Madrid was one of the mainstream, "conservative" Catholic apologists of the Catholic Answers variety whose work I admired for its intellectual as well as biblically-supported heft.

Back when I posted the scholarly article by UCLX for the proposition that head coverings for women in Church are still obligatory under canon law, Patrick Madrid covered it on his blog, and admitted its persuasiveness. That was morally courageous, I believe, because I think there is zero mileage in fronting for the mandatory nature of veiling in Catholic apologetics circles. He didn't duck the issue by chalking it up to a crazy "trad" thing, and I appreciated it.

So, if you haven't read that site, I encourage you to do so. You might spike his stats with seven more readers a day.