Rocco Palmo is a rockstar.  For those of you that don’t know, Rocco writes a very popular blog called Whispers in the Loggia and he’s read by many a serious Catholic–as a result, he’s a go-to guy for various national and internationan news outlets on what it means to be Catholic.  He’s, to quote Ron Burgundy, kind of a big deal.

But–and I think this is syptomatic of the Catholic blogosphere in general–so many people don’t care.  Rocco mentions in this post that a Bishop plugged Whispers in the Loggia in his installation speech, and I guarantee you everyone in that church knew what he was talking about.  Rocco writes a column for us at Bustedhalo.com, and I can’t tell you how many priests have asked me, when I told them I work for Bustedhalo, “do you know Rocco Palmo?”

But here’s the thing–I’ve never been asked that by someone who is not a priest, a nun, or at least incredibly invested in the politics of the Church hierarchy.    Some people really, really care.  Some people don’t care at all.   So: this divide.  To his credit, Rocco’s often written about this in his columns for Bustedhalo, and I’m sure he would agree there’s a tremendous disconnect in the Church.

And I know, I know: theology is important.  liturgy is important.  All of these things are important.  And that’s just about all the Catholic blogosphere talks about, which is why it’s so unreadable for the vast majority of Catholics.  Fine, you believe what this Bishop says matters.  But why does it matter?  Because unless we prove this “why” to people, we’re going to continue having a large generation of Catholics that you can call unorthodox and non-Catholic as much as you want, but they’ll still go to Mass every once in a while, they’ll still consider themselves Catholic, and they still won’t care, because you’re speaking and living and writing and blogging in a ghetto.