Voting for the Catholic Blog Awards is now open. We thank everyone who nominated us and we are grateful for the number of categories in which we appear. We are particularly appreciative of the Best New Catholic Blog nomination. We began this outlet for rants of the unhelpful variety just last April with no great aspirations. We are humbled by the kind words and support we have received from all over the blogosphere. We wish to extend our particular thanks to a couple of extremely wise people. (Yes, this means tooting our own horn!)

First, we would like to thank Karen Hall of the wonderfully named Some Have Hats. Karen has been a good friend to us and surprised us the other day when she wrote about Awards Season:

I also want to point out Creative Minority Report, which has several nominations, but is a great blog that you should check out if you haven’t seen it. (I nominated it for “Best Overall Blog” because it is gorgeous, has a great layout, is delightful to read and because comedy never gets the recognition it deserves.)

Honestly, I had no idea how very smart Karen was until I read that 😉 Equally sagacious is the King of the Combox, David L. Alexander. David writes on Man with the Black Hat:

a new player has emerged in the Catholic blogosphere, one that breaks the previous conventions, raises this medium to a new level, and manages to be a class act in the process. Creative Minority Report is the creation (was that a pun?) of Matthew and Patrick Archbold, two brothers…Now, anybody can link clever one-liners to a story in the Catholic press, and there are some very popular blogs that do, with the usual gaggle of combox junkies. What sets the guys at CMR apart is, they do it WELL.”

Wow, what can we say. We haven’t felt this appreciated since Mom loved our macaroni artwork in 1st grade. Our sincere thanks go out to Karen and David for their kind words. And since we are thanking people, we would be remiss if we didn’t thank all the people who linked our stories and commented in the combox this past year. In particular, we wish to thank Jeff Miller (The Curt Jester), Mark Shea, Danielle Bean,and Amy Welborn for the tremendous support and visibility they provided for our silly little endeavor. Thank you very much.

We would certainly appreciate it if you felt that CMR deserved your vote in one of the following categories.

  • Best New Catholic Blog
  • Funniest Catholic Blog
  • Best Designed Catholic Blog
  • Best Group Blog
  • Best Overall Catholic Blog
  • Best Political/Social Commentary Catholic Blog
  • Best Written Catholic Blog

However, if all of the above has failed to convince you to vote for us, I once again reiterate that failure to vote for us will have severe consequences. Unless we make a good showing in one of the above categories, for a period no less than six months we promise to do nothing but long posts on the subjects of “The proper percentage of beeswax in liturgical candles”, “The proper care and treatment of 19th century pipe organs, A Spiritual Journey”, and “In depth profiles on the virtues of Sr. Joan Chittister and Fr. Richard McBrien” (Well o.k. these last ones probably won’t be that long.)

So, if you wish to avoid this fate, please run on over to the Catholic Blog Awards site and vote CMR.

P.S. Creative Minority Report cannot confirm or deny at this time rumors that the Pope has offered a plenary indulgence for anyone who votes for CMR. We are making every effort to determine the validity of the indulgence. We anticipate an answer shortly after the voting ceases on March 17th. Stay tuned for updates.