With all due respect: the pope was calling on us to smell like sheep. He wasn’t telling us to be covered in crap.

And very often, in comboxes around the Catholic blogosphere, that is what happens. …

Increasingly, I think my job—and the job of any Catholic communicator—is to offer what my friend Elizabeth Scalia has described as “charity and clarity.” We Catholic writers and editors should not be providing a forum for bigotry and hate. That includes the comboxes.