March 10, 2010

Register to mark 110 years of service to the Gospel

By Roxanne King

Next week the Denver Catholic Register will mark its 110th birthday and we hope you’ll join us in celebrating it! In honor of that milestone, let me share with you a brief bit of our history.

Founded as the Denver Catholic on March 17, 1900, with the cover printed in green ink for St. Patrick’s Day, by 1913 the newspaper, now called the Catholic Register, was failing.

Things changed when the tabloid’s principal stockholder Msgr. Hugh McMenamin hired Matthew Smith, a 22-year-old lay journalist from Altoona, Pa., to lead it. Smith, who was ordained to the priesthood in 1923, increased circulation, purchased modern presses, and founded the Register System of Newspapers, which at its peak in the 1950s was the largest religious newspaper in the world and produced some 35 diocesan editions, many of which are still in production today, including the National Catholic Register.

Advancements in technology eventually made it possible for dioceses to produce their own papers and the Register System of Newspapers was sold in 1969.

Today, the Denver Catholic Register, with a circulation of 90,000-plus, is the largest subscription weekly in Colorado.

We are proud that a decade into the third millennium despite the troubles facing the newspaper industry the Denver Catholic Register continues to inform, evangelize and catechize the faithful.

Three years ago I ran a reflection about the Catholic media by then-president of the Catholic Press Association Helen Osman. Her words are worth repeating:
“From stem-cell research, to capital punishment, to the war in Iraq, to the issues surrounding the Mexican-U.S. border, the Catholic press writes about the issues of today from the perspective of the Gospel truth. Our journalists don’t work in the Catholic press because they can’t work in the secular press. Most choose the Catholic press because they want to work in an environment where ‘the primary directive’ is to bring Gospel values into our everyday lives. They recognize that there really is objective truth, and that truth is greater than their individual perspectives. In the spirit of St. Francis (de Sales), they attempt to be instruments of that Truth. The Catholic press offers a unique lens through which our readers can see world events: the lens of the teachings of Jesus Christ.“With that lens and that perspective, we can be enlightened.”

At the Register we are grateful for the privilege to serve the Gospel through the Catholic press and for the opportunity to share the good news of God’s people today. Each week it is our prayer that our work enlightens you and helps you to achieve your call to holiness. We hope that if you value your Denver Catholic Register you will consider making a voluntary contribution to cover the $25 annual subscription cost as part of our 2010 JOIN the MISSION campaign (see the ad below). If you cannot make a donation, don’t worry, you’ll continue to receive your Denver Catholic Register for free.

Let me take this final opportunity to invite you to send us your prayer intentions so we may offer them during a Mass of thanksgiving for our anniversary and to drop us a line telling us how the Register touches your life (mail to DCR Editor, 1300 S. Steele St., Denver, CO 80210 or e-mail to editor@archden.org). And don’t forget that you are warmly invited to attend our open house set from 3 p.m.-5 p.m. March 17 in Room 125 of the John Paul II Center (see address above) to meet our staffers. We’ll raise a toast to Msgr. Smith and to all those who have labored at the Register over its 110-year history. And we’ll ask God’s blessing that the Register may continue to carry the good news of salvation far into the third millennium.

Roxanne King is editor of the Denver Catholic Register.