St. Blog's is not an actual Roman Catholic Parish and there is no Saint known as Saint Blog - most of you will know this instinctively but the question is asked so we'll take care of that right up front.
So if it isn't a real Parish then what is it? Well, we're a loosely knit group of Catholics who maintain personal "blogs" (short for "web logs")(Thus we are called "bloggers"). Most of us chronicle our daily lives mixing in commentary on the world around us as it affects us and is affected by our Catholic Faith. Some are professional Catholics - Clergy, religious, apologists, writers, journalists, teachers etc., but mostly we're just ordinary Catholics in the ordinary world.
Everything you see that is a part of St. Blog's Parish - the Webring, the Directory, the Aggregator, and the Wiki (we'll talk about these later) were created and are maintained by "volunteers" from among the Catholic community of bloggers and these volunteers pay for the web hosting, equipment, software, and time themselves. You may find a "Donate" button on some pages -- please feel free to contribute & help defray the costs if you are able.
5/14/02: Added a new page listing some of the Catholic "Blogs". Enjoy! I keep updating Scandal and Hope Page and will do the same with the Blog Page (and won't always mention this in "What's New...")
With this entry Gerard Serafin ("A Catholic Blog for Lovers") began his "Catholic Blogs Page" in mid-May 2002. Around the same time Kathy Shaidle ( relapsed catholic) penned the name "St. Blog's Parish" and in June Kathryn Lively (Come On, Get Lively!) started a web ring and named it St. Blog's Parish".
And so it began.
Four years later St. Blog's Parish has grown to include hundreds of Catholic bloggers (just shy of 1,000!). The parish includes apologists, speakers, writers, priests, nuns, monks, brothers, poets, jesters, theologians, military (active & veterans), seminarians, novices, deacons, artists, mothers, fathers, high school students, college undergrads, families, friends, and so much more!
The Parish has received some press attention and even holds its own annual Catholic Blog Awards (thanks to Joshua Le Blanc (cyberCatholics.com). While the parishioners are largely from the USA there are a few who are not and we hope to gather in more bloggers from around the globe to make St. Blog's Parish an even larger Catholic presence on the internet.
With Gerard's death in November, 2004 several "parishioners" expressed interest in maintaining the list and keeping Gerard's effort going.
Gen X Revert (Gen X Revert) started the "Catholic Blog Directory" and Mary Herboth went a step further - putting up a discussion forum that she dubbed "St. Blog's Parish Hall".
Gen X's list is still active and the directory that Mary continued has since passed to John Bowden (Adjutorium Nostrum + In Nomine Domini) and is called " The St. Blog's Parish Directory of Catholic Blogs & Resources".
Along with these lists another interested parishioner, Eric Williams (Ales Rarus ), started what he called the "St. Blog's Parish Aggregator" - a collection of parishioner's RSS/Atom feeds - a means of reading the posts of many blogs in a single location. Very handy!
To that end Eric Williams, and John Bowden are planning to coordinate their efforts to try and make the ring, the aggregator, and the directory more of a comprehensive parish representation.
Our first task will be to consolidate the ring's application form into the directory/aggregator form - one form in one place to join all three parts of the parish.
Another effort will be turned toward synchronizing the web ring with the directory - to list all the blogs in both places.
Ultimately our goal is to provide an umbrella under which St. Blog's Parish can be more easily found and with less confusion and to provide a vehicle to present the Catholic blogging community worldwide.