TIA,

I am a trad cath in the northern Virginia area.

I am one of a handful who have actually used their real name on Angelqueen. I stopped posting there 2 years ago, but unfortunately, on occasion I have continued to look at their news feeds for important items like the latest issue on the "freeing of the mass." Apparently, it is the only quickie news feed in town.

I am writing to describe my experience with them for your edification.

I think they are harmful to the faith for several reasons:

1. Many of the news feeds are merely an endless sea of rumors and disinformation, or are mostly titilating in content that satisfies boredom more than anything else.

2. Quite often there are attacks on other well known trad cath figures such as Marian Horvat or Malachi Martin. These news items are cleverly misleading and often incomplete, like yellow journalism, perhaps. When one reads through it quickly, one thinks: "Oh my, Angelqueen must be right," but when one reads it carefully, without bias, one sees the clever use of smoke and mirrors in how they write their stories.

3. The problem comes from the top down at their site. The owner, John Grasmeier, followed by a team of hooded commentators known as "moderators", followed by a small group of die-hards commenting on every other story. It gets old, like television sit coms or Highschool highjinx, which gives one the impression that trad caths are silly low lifes, debased in their demeanor and culture. Many of the comments are made by your average Joe trad cath, but even they get pulled into the mud. If someone of good will stopped by, he would be repulsed, not attracted to the trad faith.

4. A lack of desire or intent to pursue topics in an educational way. By that I mean: Whether it is the issue of the validity of Novus Ordo rites, or sede-vacante issues, or the situation of Sister Lucia, etc., things are presented as one sided, as if any issues that are not in line with Angelqueen's leadership are simply silly or in bad taste. People are even thrown off the forum without really good reason, similar to how the Novus Ordo tries to silence trads. I have seen people threatened or kicked off when they were not even doing anything wrong, because there is a loosely used "rule" that one can not demean another person - it is used against people who are commenting on a well known leader's words or actions, but the overall opinion of the comment goes against Angelqueen's opinion of the day.

A positive example of how to speak about issues that may be contentious was shown by my local trad chapel priest, Fr. Ringrose. He gave a talk on sede-vacantism. He is not a sede-vacantist. I was pleasantly surprised and better understood the issue, because his talk presented both sides of the argument, and he gave respect to the sede-vacantist leaders, such as Bishop Sanborn. He didn't present them as fruits or people to be shunned, but as genuine trad caths who disagree with him on this issue.

Unfortunately, Angelqueen is not the only place where these antics go on. Because of it's popularity, it has spawned a way of life in the trad cath movement that is motivated by hate more than love.

I am encouraging you to use your influence to boycott Angelqueen. This could be done by:

1. Contacting the Daily Catholic site and asking them to remove their link to Angelqueen as a news feed. They already have a warning next to the link, saying to go their at one's own risk.

2. Contacting other trad cath leaders that you have some influence with and asking them to speak out on the disinformation from Angelqueen.

3. Providing an alternative news feed site, perhaps without the comments from the gallery, but only from the site owners themselves, or perhaps with mandatory identification. If one is not willing to use his own name, it is an occasion to not rein in one's tongue.

     K.D.C.

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