Please remember Julie from Happy Catholic and her husband in your prayers - especially this weekend - and well as those they serve and those who serve with them. Julie, and hubby, and several other couples are off to facilitate their “Beyond Cana Marriage Enrichment Weekend” and it seems like Old Scratch - who we know likes to get in the way of people trying to do good things - is doing his darndest to get in the way of the weekend - all of the volunteer leaders have had curves thrown at them in the past few days - family injuries, and the like.
Anyway, Julie asked me to ask you to please keep all involved in your prayers, that the presenters may do the will of God and the participants may find their marriages enriched and their faith strengthened.
Julie would tell you about it herself, but someone has flagged her site as a “spam” blog and so google/blogger has her locked out.
Also locked out of their blogs are Deacon Greg of Deacon’s Bench and Patrick O’ Hannigan of Paragraph Farmer. Someone is clearly up to mischief - three less offensive folks there could not be - but it seems blogger’s safe-guards are looked at by some as a chance to stomp out free expression of thought!
Curiously, all three are bloggers - who are on my blogroll - had agreed to allow me to use some of their stuff for reprinting over here during the online retreat I am planning for next weekend (but poor Julie mistakenly thought was this weekend!)
Not that one is conspiracy minded.
But it does seem that Old Scratch is doing his usual. Pray for Julie, her husband and Beyond Cana group, Deacon Greg and Patrick. And please pray for the success of the retreat that will begin at sundown August 10.
UPDATE: Vita Nostra In Ecclesia is also flagged, as well as Catholic Fire. Let me know of any other Catholic blogs on google/blogger and I’ll add them to the growing list!
UPDATE II:
Dr. Helen is also locked out, so this mischief isn’t just anti-Catholic. In fact, Instapundit says thousands are flagged, with across-the-board interests. Summer mischief?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:33 am
[...] Prayer request: Catholic bloggers flagged [...]
August 1st, 2008 at 10:57 am
I am locked out as well. I guess, what with my recent writings on truth, love, and Humanae Vitae, someone decided to try to use the barrier method against me.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:10 am
The same thing has happened to Jean at Catholic Fire.
[Thanks, Curt - admin]
August 1st, 2008 at 11:57 am
It was meant to control spam, but they should have set it up in a way to minimize the chances for abuse, as this obviously is. I read one of the blogs just now, which contained a very interesting post explaining the Pope’s and the Church’s position on birth control in a way I’d never heard it explained before, and which had a great deal of merit.
It’s a shame that people are so afraid of others reading a contradictory point of view from their own that they descend to such levels.
These are by and large the very people that would scream the loudest about freedom of speech if they were just slightly criticized for their own views.
Google should eliminate the spam button, and set up a different system, maybe some kind of specific url where people could report spam, and an actual human person could look at the sight once a minimum number of complaints were received. That would go a long way toward solving this problem, but instead Blogger wants to take the lazy way out.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Well, this is certainly annoying. With luck and a prayer or two, maybe it will be resolved today.
And then, of course, it just gives someone else an opportunity to raise a flag, and the cycle can continue…
Sigh.
Deacon Greg.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:26 pm
[...] Well, it has happened again. This time is it Catholic Blogger sites. [...]
August 1st, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Apparently it isn’t a Catholic thing but some other foul up.
That interview of the Holy Father excerpted at Vita Nostra In Ecclesia (currently the second post on the front page, on contraception, I think it is what Patrick is referring to) is fascinating and clicking through to the source to read the whole thing was time well spent for me.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
It may be true that a glitch with Blogger software has caused everyone else to get blocked, but there is no doubt that “they” are purposely out to get me!
It’s a conspiracy, I tell you!
August 1st, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Hey Google: Don’t Be Evil!
August 1st, 2008 at 4:39 pm
DaveW-Yep, that was the one. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, and by the time I finally remembered my log in id and password I’d forgotten the name of it. Good, interesting reading.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Anchoress my Blog was flagged and shut down too seconds after I dod my last post
August 1st, 2008 at 5:07 pm
[...] still open for debate on the subject if someone has some counter information Whoever it is, is also attacking Catholic Bloggers it seems. FOX News has caught on to it as well it looks like ZDNet brought it up back in July when it first [...]
August 1st, 2008 at 8:03 pm
My Dear Anchoress,
It may be conspiracy–I can’t connect to David Warren’s site, http://davidwarrenonline.com
Whodunit?
Have A Blessed Day!
oddball
August 1st, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Well, I’m back up, but now I am having trouble opening some sites in Internet Explorer (such as THIS site, which I was able to open in Mozilla).
LGF says its a sitemeter problem.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:22 am
Mine is not a Catholic blog, but http://donsingleton.blogspot.com/ was shut down as a possible spam blog on 7/31, and as this indicates, I just got back up. Interestingly I have two other blogs on Blogger, and only my main one was disabled.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:08 am
I had the same problem last night with IE. Everytime I clicked on theanchoressonline from my favorites list, I was given an “abort” window-message, and the site would disappear. This happened on many other sites I tried, but not all. Notably, were google bloggers - which I am not.
I was thinking conspiracy last night, too.
Just before logging off I downloaded a service pack from Windows. I was able to come here this morning. Will check on other sites.
I hope others will comment if they know more about the internet/google/system than me.