RJ Stove asks, “Should Catholics blog?” noting three ethical potholes on the blogospheric highway:

i. Addiction, with all its dangers;

ii. Pseudonymity, with all its dangers;

iii. Encouraging smart-aleck soundbites rather than hard, detailed, historically scrupulous reasoning;

iv. Related to (iii), a general degrading of language, and of the writers role as languages custodian (not to say as breadwinner);

v. De facto anticlericalism.

For instance:

The Internets capacity for creating addicts is something that even the stupidest Panglossian social worker no longer attempts to deny. Every conscientious priest is aware of it; many a priest worries about it; some priests actually issue warnings to their flock about it. More priests should do so.

Etc.

But “many a priest worries about it”? Hell, most of them don’t know what it is or look on it with — shall we say — clerical condescension. For one thing, blogging has built into an interactivity that’s not in many priests’ vocabulary either.

Nonetheless, Stove has a good examination-of-conscience checklist here.