The press’ problem

The Catholic press has a problem: lots of people have lots of ideas about what the Catholic press is. Or should be. That’s sometimes a problem it shares with the very faith that is at the core of the Catholic Press.

If that sounds a bit roundabout, bear with me. February is Catholic Press Month. The slogan this year is straightforward: “Spread the word.” Yet, that’s probably going to be another part of the problem.

Whose word to spread? What words? And even the month’s larger theme: “The Catholic Press: the place to turn for the rest of the story” will raise some eyebrows. And almost certainly generate more than a few sputtering retorts. But more about that problem.

Unlike the secular press, which mainly exists to make noise and a profit, the Catholic press mainly exists to make a point and a difference. True, some secular publications are dedicated to a specific message, and some Catholic publications (too many, frankly) are judged more by their balance sheets than by their pages. But the comparison, though simplistic, works.

The problem is that too many people let the secular media define the church. But expecting Catholics to understand what is happening in the church or what the church is saying without reading the Catholic press is, frankly, folly.

That’s especially true during this past year when the church has been struggling over the tragedy of clerical sexual abuse and its sometimes failed efforts to respond to it. But without reading the Catholic press, such as The Catholic New World, one might believe that’s the church’s only story.

Archbishop John Foley, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communication, put it more eloquently: “At that depressing moment in history of the … church, Catholic publications not only published the truth in its entirety but also—even more importantly—reminded Catholics that the bad news of clerical abuse was in no way the full story of the … church in the United States.”

In other words, if you’re Catholic, you should be reading the Catholic press.

That’s a pretty bold statement, because it begs the questions that form the core of the Catholic press’—and the church’s—problem, especially so in a culture which likes to proclaim that knowledge is power.

Sadly, too much of what passes for knowledge these days comes from only one perspective—secular media. Yet, when it comes to knowing—let alone understanding and appreciating—the perspective of the church on such issues as Iraq, clerical sex abuse, life concerns and more, too many people (Catholics included) are content to let secular media fill their information pots. Whose word to spread? What words? The faith’s, of course.

But many people look askance at the Catholic press (and, even church) as irrelevant, or call it propaganda because it echoes faith’s proclamation of a different view of life and culture. Yet, having that different view—seeing through the eyes of faith—is perhaps a good definition of what it means to be a faithful person.

I said we in the Catholic press have a problem. We surely do. We could do a better job of proclaiming the church’s stands on issues like life, death, war and morality. Some of the problem is having the resources to accomplish that.

But putting a Catholic newspaper (and I’d gladly nominate ours for the task) in every Catholic home would be a start. People likely will still argue that the pope the church are wrong on Iraq and life issues, that poverty can be ignored and that the church is irrelevant when it challenges the ills of today’s culture. But at least they’ll have a chance of knowing the truth.

For more on the Catholic press: www.catholicpress.org

Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager