Fr Stephen Smuts

Well not mine (that I know of) but Fr Dwight Longenecker’s:

I learned over the weekend that the Norwegian assassin/terrorist actually read my blog.

Here’s how it happened: On Saturday I noticed a surge in my hits. When I checked the referral I saw that they were coming from a Norwegian website that Anders Breivik had been contributing to, and that in November 2009 he linked to one of my posts.

The post was one of my usual rants about modernist Christianity, and when I later saw a translation of Breivik’s comments about my post it was nothing extreme or weird in itself.

Nevertheless, to think that my blog is out there as part of this new global publishing phenomenon and that anybody at all can read it is always amazing. To think that this madman read at least one post on my blog was disturbing at first. Naturally I wondered if I had written anything to prompt such hatred and violence.

I don’t think I have. Still, I was creeped out by it. Breivik is clearly both mad and bad, and I guess all we can do in the face of such horror is be silent and pray.

Well Fr Longenecker, we can’t help who reads what we write and why (or what they will do with that information for that matter). I read your blog regularly (and it is happily even a part of my blogroll) because I am edified through what you write. The sad thing here is that Breivik clearly was not. And that is not your fault.

But I suppose this all just goes to show how important it is to watch what we say (and write) in life.