When he named me editor of the Catholic Herald in 1986, Bishop Cletus F. O’Donnell expressed his confidence in me and encouraged me to write “one solid editorial” every week.
I’ve lived up to his request. In these 34 years, I estimate I’ve written almost 1,600 editorials.
It’s interesting to look back on the history of the United States and the role of the Catholic press. It turns out that many of the same issues facing our country today were also impacting society in the early days of our country.
The Catholic Press Association (CPA) of the United States & Canada discusses the history of the Catholic press on its website (www.catholicpress.org). It says, “As the United States was forming, nativism, or opposition to immigration, was strong. This lack of social standing placed pressure on immigrants and created a need to unite and educate, to bring news from home, and to fight for civil and religious rights in a new country. The immigrants accomplished this by forming societies and associations, and creating Catholic journals and newspapers.”
As we know, the more things change, the more they stay the same. That could be said about the Catholic press in our country.
As the United State was forming, opposition to immigration was strong. Sounds familiar?
The lack of social standing of immigrants — many of them Catholic — created a need to unite and educate, to bring news from home, and to fight for civil and religious rights in their new country.
Faithful Catholics attend Mass every Sunday and hear the Word of God read and preached to them.
Our challenge as Catholics is to take that Word and live it out in our daily lives the rest of the week.
One of the ways we can see how our faith can be lived out is by reading about how it can be done.
These days, people get their news from many sources. Much of what we read and hear is biased opinions, conjecture, or hearsay. It may be difficult to get to the truth of a matter.
When it comes to news about the Catholic Church and its teachings, Catholics also need sources that they can trust. That’s why the Catholic press is more important than ever today.
The Catholic press has an irreplaceable role in forming Christian consciences and reflecting the Church’s viewpoint on contemporary issues.
That’s not just my idea. It is what Pope Benedict XVI said in remarks on November 26, 2010, to members of the Italian Federation of Catholic Weeklies, an organization which represents 188 Catholic newspapers.
Despite the crisis in print media today, the Catholic newspaper still has a vital role to play in diocesan communications, the pope said in an article carried by Catholic News Service.
NEW ORLEANS, La. — The Catholic Herald, official newspaper of the Diocese of Madison, won four awards in the 2010 Catholic Press Awards competition sponsored by the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada.
