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Just such a backlash surely cost the Register some subscribers as it moved cautiously left of center under the editorship of Father Daniel Flaherty. But the emphasis on local diocesan life resulting from Vatican II was a more critical factor: several large dioceses decided to publish their own papers, leaving an enlarged Register printing plant underutilized. Now, as part of the sale agreement, Twin Circle—the original weekly backed by Frawley—will also be printed at the Denver plant, which stays in the hands of the former Register owners.
Twin Circle itself has grown remarkably, nearly doubling its circulation in the past 18 months to more than 100,000. Much of that increase probably resulted from a blanket, hard-sell promotion (including phone calls to every parish in the country). Some of it is also a response to the unyielding ideology of Jesuit Editor Daniel Lyons, who would have the U.S. blockade Haiphong and send Nationalist Chinese troops to Viet Nam. While an ad hoc committee of bishops was working to resolve the California table-grape strike, Lyons castigated both the bishops and the strikers. On matters of doctrine Twin Circle has supported the Pope vociferously, and has reflected traditionalist misgivings about innovations in the Church. Recently it warned darkly of "theological abuses" that might accompany the new Order of Mass.
For the moment the Register's future posture is a question mark. It will be edited and published not by Father Lyons but by Dale Francis, 53, a layman, former publisher of Twin Circle, whose weekly column in that paper was notably more moderate than the views expressed by Lyons. Francis, who admits that Twin Circle is only "a journal of opinion," promises to make the Register into a "national Catholic newspaper of record." Whether he can do this under the watchful eye of Father Lyons, who will move to Denver from his offices in Frawley's Los Angeles building, is arguable. But Francis insists: "The Register is not going to be Twin Circle. If it is necessary to do any disassociating, I will show it by the content of the paper."
Protestant publishing troubles reflect similar stress within denominations. On social issues and in theology, church leadership and local pastors in liberal Protestant churches have often been more progressive than their congregations, and sometimes positively radical. The Episcopalian, quasi-official magazine of the U.S. Episcopal Church, angered many communicants with its defense of a $40,000 grant to the militant Spanish-American Alianza in New Mexico. A breezy Methodist campus magazine, motive, ran into trouble last year when printers initially refused to set four-letter words in an issue on women's liberation; the next month's issue was pulled from the presses by the United Methodist Church Board of Education for similar language. In all, the predominantly Protestant periodicals belonging to the Associated Church Press have lost almost 2,000,000 in circulation—nearly 10% —in the past two years.