{"id":5790,"date":"2006-09-16T14:46:07","date_gmt":"2006-09-16T14:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html"},"modified":"2006-09-16T14:46:07","modified_gmt":"2006-09-16T14:46:07","slug":"but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html","title":{"rendered":"But what I really wanted to write on…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruth Gledhill’s TimesOnline blog post today,<\/a> commented on by Gashwin Gomes here. <\/a>She really drops the ball on this one:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

An initial sceptic, I came round fast to Benedict XVI after seeing the way his honesty and spirituality shone through in much that he did, in a way different though equal to that of his predecessor. Recently, many have expressed regrets to me that he hasn’t been getting out more, doing and saying more, at a time when the world needs a strong, Christian voice to help it through these dark times. Everyone is missing that steady stream of encyclicals, telling us what to think on everything from capitalism to contraception. We might not have agreed with JPII, but we did like to argue about it. <\/p>\n

Now we have heard the quieter, more studied voice of Benedict, speaking indeed in a strong, compelling-them-to-come-in<\/a>, Dominus-Iesus<\/a>-type of way that some thought they wanted of him. "Be careful what you pray for," the saying goes, and perhaps we can begin to understand why. My favourite headline today comes from The Sun: ‘Pope on the Ropes’<\/a>. We are all surely praying harder than ever for him today as he balances still on the highwire that it is his daily vocation to walk, praying that his apology can save him, that he does not tumble off into the abyss, and take the rest of us with him when he falls.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Click on the link to "compelling-them-to-come-in" and see to whom she compares Benedict. Really?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ruth Gledhill’s TimesOnline blog post today, commented on by Gashwin Gomes here. She really drops the ball on this one: An initial sceptic, I came round fast to Benedict XVI after seeing the way his honesty and spirituality shone through in much that he did, in a way different though equal to that of his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBut what I really wanted to write on... - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"But what I really wanted to write on... - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ruth Gledhill’s TimesOnline blog post today, commented on by Gashwin Gomes here. She really drops the ball on this one: An initial sceptic, I came round fast to Benedict XVI after seeing the way his honesty and spirituality shone through in much that he did, in a way different though equal to that of his…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-09-16T14:46:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"But what I really wanted to write on... - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"But what I really wanted to write on... - Via Media","og_description":"Ruth Gledhill’s TimesOnline blog post today, commented on by Gashwin Gomes here. She really drops the ball on this one: An initial sceptic, I came round fast to Benedict XVI after seeing the way his honesty and spirituality shone through in much that he did, in a way different though equal to that of his…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-09-16T14:46:07+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html","name":"But what I really wanted to write on... - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-09-16T14:46:07+00:00","dateModified":"2006-09-16T14:46:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/but-what-i-really-wanted-to-write-on.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"But what I really wanted to write on…"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}