Commentator Pauses Print to Bring Faith into the Future

For more than 60 years, our diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Commentator, has reliably and faithfully reported on the parish activities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge and served as an extension of the teaching voice of the bishop to faithful of the diocese.

Today, because of evolving technology, there is no doubt that we all get our news today in many different ways.  For many older Catholics we can remember a time when the experience of “keeping up with the news” was quite different.  

For myself growing up everyone received their local, national and international news from three major TV stations, a few radio stations and from at least one or two thriving local newspapers. Our local newspapers were often locally owned and had a vested interest in the community.
 
This is certainly not the case today with news being sourced from hundreds of sites found on TV, social media sites, radio and print (Newspapers and magazines) and available wherever we are 24 hours a day.
 
Because of these changes I have decided to take some time to consider how I can best communicate with the parishioners of the diocese in this time of such rapid social change.  The new situation begs the question of where does our local newspaper fit into this constellation of news? How do we create an effective way to communicate, in our case, to our specific Catholic community and the community at large, with the same effectiveness the Catholic Commentator has provided for more than 60 years?

To consider this question I have decided that at this time of transition, beginning in July, the Commentator will suspend regular publication.  This suspension of a regular publication will be temporary, hopefully no more than two months, as we prepare the Catholic Commentator for another 60 years.

For the past 10 years, Richard Meek has served as editor of this important part of church life and made sure, with his faithful staff, that twice a month now we receive a paper that keeps the faithful of the diocese informed of church life and teaching from around the whole diocese. Richard is retiring from the paper and we are now in search of a new editor. This is sad news for the diocese but it provides Richard the opportunity to take on different challenges and we wish him well in his new endeavors. 

During the interim, Commentator associate editor Debbie Shelley will post two stories a week to the paper’s website at news.diobr.org. 

While our search for a new editor for the Commentator continues, I am still committed to a printed Catholic Commentator so I hope this short break will allow us time to make the Commentator even more effective in the years to come. I pray the Holy Spirit will guide this good work.