I miss the give-and-take world of theological inquiry I often found in a number of periodicals that have become too expensive for my budget or can only be reached by a long trip to a library–or are going out-of-print. At the same time, it’s hard to find theological inquiry in the official Catholic press.  But you can’t stop people from thinking and I’m wondering if we are taking our thinking to the world of blogs.

I find I’m looking these days at the blogs from America Magazine and Commonweal as almost required reading. Today in America’s blog James Martin, SJ, writes about whether we should baptize children whose parents are not very interested in the church, and Austen Ivereigh has one on church marriage. Both hot pastoral topics. The blogs, written by people from different specialties and interests, cover a wide range of topics, from health care to Christian unity to religious toys for Christmas. They’re often followed by comments from readers pro and con. Welcome to the interactive world!

The church is healthy, not only when it prays and acts justly, but when it thinks. Is the church thinking making its way to blogworld?