An Example of Discourse That Should Be Ruled Out at Catholic Blog Sites: At NCR Eulogy for Father Nugent, Blogger Responds: "Food for Worms"

I never know if folks think I'm exaggerating or not when I address the problem of outright anti-gay hate speech on Catholic blog sites. Let me provide readers with a few examples from discussions at National Catholic Reporter threads just today:

NCR has published a good eulogy of Father Robert Nugent of New Ways Ministry written by Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service. Here's how a reader named Contemplati chooses to respond to that eulogy: 

Food for worms.

I've flagged this comment, and I expect others may have flagged it, too, and so I think NCR may well remove it from the thread in due course. Meanwhile, it seems to me worth noting, as an example of what I spoke about in an earlier posting today: outright hate speech against gay people or those who show compassion to gay people, at Catholic blog sites.

A comment Contemplati left at another (non-NCR) thread a few moments prior to his ugly "food for worms" comment about Bob Nugent has now disappeared from that discussion thread in the past minute or so: it was about gay men and Hershey highways. Meanwhile, other abusive statements he's made in the past several days about race matters remain up and running at various sites--like this one at a CNN thread about a riot in a Brooklyn mall and "Slappy McZulus."

Thankfully, several misogynistic comments Contemplati left in the past few minutes at NCR threads have now disappeared, too--though as I post this posting, the "food for worms" comment about Bob Nugent remains on the site.

Perhaps it's better simply to ignore such crass, juvenile discourse from someone who may bask in the notice he (I have trouble seeing Contemplati as a woman) receives as he posts these mean-spirited scattershot comments attacking women, gays, and people of color. On the other hand, I continue to maintain that this kind of discourse has no place at Catholic blog sites for reasons I outlined earlier today (and I want to underscore that some of his comments that I've cited above are not at Catholic discussion sites, but news sites).

In one posting after another at various sites, Contemplati does identify himself as Catholic, by the way.

Later: and as I think about this posting, I ask myself if I was as charitable as I might have been in things I said online about Mrs. Thatcher after her death?