Newsmen who serve the biggest specialized press in the U.S. gathered in Dallas last week, and most of them turned out in an odd journalistic garb: black suits, black hats, clerical collars. Some 350 of them came from 48 states for the annual convention of the Catholic Press Association, a vast, closely knit (yet loosely governed) publishing empire with a total magazine and newspaper circulation of almost 24 million. Today, as Bishop Robert J. Dwyer of Reno told the delegates, the Catholic press is "reaching more people and exerting a greater influence over American thought than at any time in the past."
Once scorned among Catholics themselves as "dreary diocesan drivel," the U.S. Catholic press has grown in variety, liveliness and readability. Many Catholic papers draw enough advertising to turn a steady profit; where they do not, the church pays their deficits. The press still suffers widely from what Bishop Dwyer called "a good deal of pious incompetence." But the intellectual weeklies—the liberal lay Commonweal and the Jesuit-edited America, etc.—come up to any secular standard; the layman-edited monthly Jubilee is a tasteful slick picture magazine, and an infusion of trained lay journalists has given many of the diocesan papers both professional polish and a telling effect in their communities. Last week the association honored New Jersey's weekly Advocate (circ. 96,881) for a crusade against firms operating on Sunday that cost the paper $45,000 in canceled ads, but succeeded in getting the legislature to ban Sunday used-car sales. Another prizewinner: Cleveland's Catholic Universe Bulletin (circ. 90,795), which campaigned successfully for the ouster of a Communist labor group from local industries.
What Is "Official"? As it moves ever higher by secular standards, the Catholic press faces much the same problems as the rest of the U.S. press. But one is unique: the widespread confusion over whether the Catholic press, on such problems as U.S. foreign policy, immigration or "right to work" legislation, speaks with the voice of the church and follows a "Catholic line." What confounds the confusion is the "official" label in the masthead of virtually all the 104 diocesan weeklies. Unlike secular editors who wistfully hope that readers may take their editorial views as gospel, many a thoughtful Catholic editor wishes that readers would not.
The "official" status of Catholic papers confuses not only non-Catholics but many of the faithful themselves. In the view of Catholic critics, some hotly partisan Catholic papers, e.g., Brooklyn's right-wing Tablet (circ. 119,893), seem content to let readers believe—as many do—that editorial tributes to Joe McCarthy and Senator Jenner of Indiana are church-inspired.