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Increasingly, Catholic papers try to keep their readers straight on what is official and what is not. The Boston Pilot, founded in 1829, the country's oldest Catholic paper, carries an official slug over such material as pastoral letters and directives from the archbishop. At the head of its editorial page, the Indiana Catholic and Record runs a line frequently heard in Catholic journalism: "The opinions expressed [here] represent a Catholic point of view—not necessarily THE Catholic point of view."
Within such limits, church leaders, e.g., Cardinals Stritch of Chicago and Mclntyre of Los Angeles, have called for more controversy in the Catholic press on public issues of the day. Said Editor Bosler to his colleagues last week: "Even the most timid of Catholic editors these days is emboldened to poke his head out of his shell and to take a look around. And high time it is, too." Added the Rev. Thurston Davis, Editor of America: "Catholics, of course, think and judge alike on matters of faith and morality. But on all other matters, usually of a social, economic or cultural nature, in which the church has taken no authoritative position, she can be said not only to tolerate debate, but actually to encourage and urge it. The fact that we see eye to eye on the mysteries of the incarnation, the redemption and the divine trinity does not make it any easier—or, for that matter, even necessary—that we all nod our heads together when someone mentions the Bricker amendment, fluoridation of water, or the merger of the C.I.O. and A.F.L."
* Not to be confused with the Vatican's daily Osservatore Romano (circ. 50,000), which contains both official and unofficial views. The official Vatican organ, which runs only official texts, is the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.