Gerald Augustinus is closing down his Cafeteria blog.

We wrote about the difficulties Gerald was having in his faith and on his blog some weeks ago. In the post we referenced at that time, Augustinus strayed far from Catholic teaching on the issues surrounding homosexuality and gender change. Even though I don’t read him anymore, it came to my attention that he recently had an even more shocking and disgusting post on the topic of masturbation. The once popular blogger is now shutting down the once very Catholic and very popular site for a new blog. Something not Catholic. Gerald explains:

I know that there will be more photos, for one – one a day as minimum.
It won’t be a blog with a theme, ie not a Catholic or Republican etc. blog
It won’t be all-Catholic-news-that’s-fit-to-print, it’s so much work to sift through th e web and I have to focus on business, ie photography. Amy got exhausted after a few years, too.
Whether it’ll have any readers – I don’t know. It’s easier to be strictly one thing, like, say, DailyKos, or Michelle Malkin.
Topics – politics, culture, religion, art, books, music, and of course photography.
…
What I can tell you is that I’m not going to argue whether homosexuality is immoral or not 😛 It’ll be a personal opinion blog with no claims to anything.
…
The current blog has run its course – I’m just teasing people now so that’s not nice 🙂 I’ll keep posting political and other stuff for a few days until the new one is ready, but nothing church-related that’s controversial.

I’ve become more, uh, nuanced, so some of my old posts sound horrid to me now, downright Manichean. Apologies to ‘old hippies’ – you’re not all bad ;o) I’ve become mellow with marriage !

I think he has it backward of course. If anything, Gerald is more Manichean now then ever. Manicheans deny the infinite perfection of God and postulate the existence of two equal and opposite powers. Good and Evil. What Gerald seems to be choosing is a middle road between these two powers.

Holding this middle-of-the-road philosophy up as the ideal, he congratulates himself on his keen perception of “nuance”. Of course, being middle-of-the-road sounds an awful lot like lukewarm and you know what Jesus said about them. As for the old hippies, at least they stick to their worldview. Upside down as it may be.

I have mixed feelings about this closure. For certain, I think it is good that his writing that veers of the road of orthodoxy will no longer have a perceived imprimatur by virtue of his Catholic blog status. My fear, however, is that by cutting his tether to other Catholics he may stray further from the truth. I pray that doesn’t happen as I am sure that you do.

As Cardinal Newman once said, “We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”

Please pray for Gerald Augustinus.


Thanks to David Alexander for the tip.