The readers report

Jesus never said: “Blessed are those who labor in the field of Catholic journalism, for they shall see paradoxes. And, yea, those paradoxes shall vex and perplex them.”

Jesus never said that, but he could have, oh, he could have.

Verily.

Consider a few recent communications from readers.

The first was a real upper: The parent of a second-grader from Lake County got me on the phone asking about a subscription to The Catholic New World. Seems her daughter came home from school one day and asked if the family received TCNW. No, they didn’t, and the child (bless her, and the teacher who put her up to it) said, “Well, why not?”

That was enough for the parent, who called to have The Catholic New World delivered. She even said she’d read it to her child, if necessary. (I told her to read it first herself; that’s where we generally aim.) But it was downhill from there on, and the next communications are where the word “paradox” comes in.

One reader had just received our special Jan.13 issue presenting the annual archdiocesan financial report. He wanted to know (and this really hurt) why we wasted money and killed “all those trees” to send him something that didn’t answer his questions.

Of course, the financial report did indeed have his answers, if he had looked for them, and other questions were appropriately answered by the archdiocesan financial department. And, by the way, TCNW is printed on recycled newsprint.

Then there was the missive from the reader who wanted to know why we didn’t print more “news.” There were, he griped, too many “sermons” and those weren’t all that good anyway.

Finally came the bitter e-mail from a teacher at one of the 14 Catholic schools set to close this year (see story on this page).

She was angry over what she had read in the secular press about the closings (never mind that official, and accurate, information wasn’t yet available). The paper, she said, reported that the archdiocese had made a profit last year and she wanted to know why were children being abandoned. And never mind what the church said, she knew all the facts.

Whew!

At the core of all that is a truth: if you want news with a secular slant, or incomplete information or don’t want to believe there could be another side to the news, stop reading now. But the reality is that the secular press—often despite the best of intentions—isn’t going to be where you will learn all the truth.

That’s the paradox of the Catholic press: yes, it tries to tell the Good News, the good news and even the just plain news. Admittedly there is a slant: the perspective of the church.

The secular media reported on the financial situation of the archdiocese. But it couldn’t tell the story nearly as completely as we did.

And the secular news has a slant, too. Too often it’s in the opposite direction—one that highlights conflict, controversy and avoids tales of cooperation and collaboration. In the secular press, good news usually just isn’t news.

Is that a slam on secular media? No. I labored in that field for almost 35 years and don’t regret a bit of it. The secular media do many things well we cannot hope to do. But it doesn’t have the knowledge or the perspective to report fully on the Catholic Church … except where there is controversy. That it does sometimes too gleefully.

A little more about those “sermons.” I suppose the reader was referring to the columns and articles which have a connection to faith, and to proclaiming the Good News. That, after all, is one thing the secular media just doesn’t do.

So read secular media, watch TV. Listen to talk radio. But make sure you understand there is another perspective: If you’re Catholic, you should read The Catholic New World.

Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager