The Catholic Herald was notified by our printer that there will be an increase in our charges starting in August. The main reason given for this increase was the rise in newsprint prices.
Why is this happening? Our government, at the request of a single paper producer, has assessed tariffs (which are really new taxes) on newsprint imported from Canada.
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.
The Catholic Herald-Diocese of Madison won six awards in the 2013 Catholic Press Awards competition sponsored by the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada.
Let’s face it. People obtain their news from many different sources these days. How do you know who to trust in this profusion of newspapers, Web sites, blogs, television and radio programs?
There are also many sources of religious news today, some of them purporting to be Catholic. Yet I’ve found that some of these so-called “Catholic” news outlets and blogs do not always report the full truth of the Catholic faith.
We must be careful that we are getting clear Catholic teaching as handed down by the magisterium or teaching authority of the Church through our popes and bishops and as articulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Church documents.
Diocesan newspapers represent “significant places of encounter and attentive discernment for lay faithful involved in the social and political arena so that they can dialogue and find convergences and objectives for joint action in the service of the Gospel for the common good.”
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.
As we celebrate February as Catholic Press Month, I would like to comment on the continued importance of Catholic media in today’s world.
With a plethora of communication tools today (printed materials, computers, cell phones, electronic books), we seem to be bombarded by information. How do we sort it all out? How do we separate truth from fiction? What is important for us to know and what is just garbage?
