ADVANCING THE NEW EVANGELIZATION
Winning the World for the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Seeing Reality through
Catholic Eyes
Greg Erlandson
W
hy do we need a vibrant, dynamic, engaged Catholic
press? We need it because we need a well-informed,
a well-formed, and an inspired Catholic laity. Today this is
not just a pious cliché. Our Church faces grave challenges
that demand such a laity.
Most Catholic parents today have been
educated primarily in, at best, forty-minute
class sessions twenty or so weeks a year
from first through eighth grades or until
Confirmation, whichever comes first. Too
many of them are, in terms of their religious
I.Q., children inhabiting adult bodies.
Yet most parishes have neither the re-
sources nor the strategies to educate and
evangelize today’s adults who are them-
selves responsible for passing on the faith
to the next generation as well as meeting
the growing challenges of our own age.
That is why, at this point in U.S. Church
history, the greatest strategic need facing
the Church may be in the area of adult faith
formation and education.
I would argue that within this context, a
vibrant Catholic media—print, digital, ra-
dio, television—is needed more than ever.
Why? Because it is still the most wide-
spread means of ongoing adult faith educa-
tion and formation we have today.
First, Catholic media provide information
that Catholics often won’t find elsewhere.
Whatever one thinks of the quality of the
secular media, its coverage of the Church
is uneven at best. At a time when Catholic
leaders seek to engage the great issues of
the day, their voices often barely rise above
a whisper in the secular press. And just as
unfortunately, most Catholics are like non-
Catholics: that is, they get their information
about the Church from secular media.
The Church needs its own voice to en-
gage society and be heard in the public
square, but first and foremost it needs a
voice to inform Catholics, helping them to
see reality through Catholic eyes. It needs
a voice to tell the stories that are not be-
ing told, and it needs a voice to mobilize
Catholics when action is needed.
Second, to be informed means that one
is learning to see the world through Catho-
lic eyes. The task of the Catholic media is
not just the who, what, where, and when,
but also the why. The regular appearance of
a Catholic publication with news, analysis,
columns, and features in a virtual or ac-
tual mailbox does more to help form more
adult Catholics than any other method or
tool because it helps them to better under-
stand their own faith.
From the point of view of Catholic news
media, the formation they provide is not
the same as catechetics. It is not narrowly
pedantic in intent, nor is it propagandistic.
But in reporting on the world and in let-
ting Catholic voices be heard unfiltered by
secular media or the prevailing biases and
values of the dominant culture, it plays a
vital and formative role.
Covering controversial issues such as the
debate surrounding Communion for the
divorced and remarried can be instructive
about the Church’s teaching regarding the
Sacrament of Marriage. Articles about pro-
life or human dignity issues are instructive
in moral formation. News about the na-
tional and international Church inspires us
with examples of Catholics living out their
faith in different communities.
Like all media, the Catholic press is un-
der great stress, but it remains a vital and
valuable tool in service to the Church. It
needs the resources to flourish and to fulfill
its role to inform, to form, and to inspire,
particularly at this time when other institu-
tions of the Church, especially the parish,
are facing equally daunting challenges and
are in need of a well-formed laity.
In a cacophonous media environment,
Catholic media—print, video, radio, and
digital—is critically important if the Church
is to preach the Gospel, form its members,
and reach modern men and women effec-
tively.
Greg Erlandson is director and editor-in-chief of
Catholic News Service. He is former president of
the Catholic Press Association and served as one
of six international experts on the Vatican’s media
reform committee in 2014-2015.
shms.edu
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