If Rod Dreher doesn't write The Benedict Post, who does?

Another Monday, another anonymously written The Benedict Post pushing a raft of Web-scrounged Catholicism upon which sits, as it does every Monday, another recommendation for Rod Dreher's pet book project, his so-called Benedict Option. Rod Dreher's Benedict Option even holds that place of prominence in the blog's About page that would normally be filled by its author's name.

Like The Benedict Post and its anonymous author Muzhik, an animated anthropomorphic being, magically created entirely from inanimate matter

So these three questions naturally continue to intrigue me:

• Why would a Catholic newsletter - prominently touting Rod Dreher's Benedict Option on a regular basis - suddenly burst upon the scene - anonymously, out of nowhere - just as Dreher is working overtime everywhere else to promote interest in his landing a Benedict Option book deal?

• If ex-Catholic Rod Dreher himself isn't writing it, who is, and why are they ashamed to reveal who they are? Why is The Benedict Post - supposedly to serve fellow Catholics, not Rod Dreher - secretly authored?

• Why would you, as a Catholic, want to subscribe to a carefully orchestrated newsletter you don't even know is written by a Catholic?

For the sake of understanding what may very well be going on here in more detail, let's just step our way through this whole phenomenon.

Let's say that I, Keith, want to corral a large, fairly cohesive audience world wide for my Keith Project, installing big screen TVs in garage man caves.

Let's also say that I was a Catholic myself for a dozen years or so after which, for some reason - restrictive birth control policies, what I regarded as "ugly" churches, a complete faith meltdown - I repudiated my Catholic faith and took up another more amenable to my lifestyle.

Even having walked away from Catholicism, however, what have I been able to take with me? That's right:

• a fairly deep working knowledge of the innards of Catholicism

• my skills as a professional writer to shape that resource to whatever ends I choose

Okey doke, first order of business, set up a platform theme that resonates with the billion-plus population of Catholics I want to market to. At this point I have to admit, playing off the very attractive term "Benedict" - Catholic saint, confirmation name of millions, even the Latin for "good" prominently up front - beats pushing big screen TVs in garages hands down.

So, for the sake of argument, let's just imagine at this juncture that I'm secretly pushing Rod Dreher's Benedict Option instead of big screen TVs.

In addition to the infinitely resonant common term Benedict as a feel-good brand, what else do I need?

Something that won't crimp my schedule; it's hard enough trying to get by as a writer. Got it:

• an only once-a-week newsletter

• that doesn't accept comments I'd have to spend time policing

• that my audience can also pull themselves by subscribing to

• that I can cross-promote on word-minimal Twitter

Call it an hour's worth of work a week to help promote my project; an extremely cost-effective trade-off.

Okay, that's the vehicle. What about the content?

Let's remember that, as the style of TBP clearly shows us, the blog author is a professional writer. Thus, if I'm them, I can take just about any subject you assign me and spin out something credible sounding about it. But if I'm Rod Dreher, I've also got twelve-plus years as a Catholic under my belt.

The time it would take me each week to knock out one or two longer length Catholic articles? Maybe 15 - 20 minutes.

The rest? My obligatory weekly Benedict Option self-promotion, of course.

And then a massive, around-the-Web farm of short Catholic links I can quickly and easily paste under my lead articles. That leaves me at least a good 20 minutes over the next week to tweet-promote my blog including effortless retweet filler.

That's it. On the surface, it may look like that one-stop-shopping Catholic newsletter the billion-plus Catholics world wide have been deprived of for too long, but a child's model airplane kit is complex and time-consuming by comparison.

So. For my hour-per-week self-Benedict Option-promotional investment, what have I got now?

The perfect Pavlovian vehicle to condition potentially a billion-plus Catholics to favorably consider my Benedict Option and, ideally, also buy the book I want to write about it: if they read The Benedict Post long enough, what will Catholics who love Catholicism come to subliminally associate Rod Dreher's Benedict Option with?

Right: the Catholicism they already love. The Benedict Post/Rod Dreher's Benedict Option = bell; Catholicism = food reward for favorably heeding bell.

Hey, I've already been called a crazy conspiracy theorist by Muzhik, the anonymous author of The Benedict Post.

Fine by me: prove me wrong. Prove that this slick but effortless new blog-cum-Twitter account is anything more than an attractive vehicle with Rod Dreher's Benedict Option as it's sole recurring passenger.

Prove me wrong, Muzhik. The only reason to keep being anonymous as the author of TBP is because you're ashamed that you're either Rod Dreher or a close enough crony indistinguishable from him using trusting Catholics as rubes to sell Rod Dreher's Benedict Option as fundamental to Catholicism.

Put up, Muzhik - tell us who you really are - or STFU when reasonable people conclude that only Rod Dreher could produce such an obviously artificial Golem as The Benedict Post.