Tom Peters, the American Papist, spoke this morning at the Catholic Leadership Conference in Orlando. The CLC, meeting for the 12th consecutive year, is being hosted by Bishop Thomas Wenski who celebrated Mass yesterday at the beautiful National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe. (Bishop Wenski told me after Mass that the church received the official designation of "basilica" only a few weeks ago.)

Some of the points made by Peters include:

1. Catholic bloggers defend the Church against her attackers
   
   
2. They protect Catholics "within the fold"
   
   
3. Organize political action, e.g., support Belmont Abbey against government discrimination
   
   
4. Force Catholics to think about their faith critically and faithfully
   
   
5. The future of Catholic blogging is being shaped by Facebook and Twitter, i.e., virtual social networking
   
   
6. There will be more aggregation of Catholic blogs in the future
   
   
7. Look for more use of Catholic video blogging in the future -- to reach out to other people YouTube is more effective than text blogging

(Peters was joined on the panel by Josh Mercer, communications director of CatholicVote.org. Peters described CatholicVote. org as an example of effective video blogging.)

Peters concluded by discussing the challenge of the notion of Catholics finding "common ground" -- it is a "poison pill" being offered to Catholics. We need "to explain to the outside world" why Catholics should reject these arguments.