Creative Minority Report – reports that Danielle Bean of DanielleBean.com and Faith & Family Live fame is taking over leadership of the Catholic Digest.
Considering that I have found Catholic Digest indigestible in the past this is very good news.
I suspect Danielle’s influence will be felt immediately at the Catholic Digest. This is great news for Catholic media. Now, if Pat and I could just take over the National Catholic Reporter we’d all be set.
Hmm, that is a nice Catholic blogosphere style fantasy of taking over the National Catholic Reporter. It would be great to hold a staff meeting after the take over. “John Allen, Jr. you can stay, as for the rest of you maybe America magazine or U.S. Catholic is hiring.” The first order of business would be to get a priest and lots of Holy Water.
Though now that I think about it I dreamed of this possibility back when EWTN took over the National Catholic Register.
If I was wealthy enough to buy it, I would certainly have fun with it. Though I would slowly work with the subscriber base. Like a nicotine patch I would slowly introduce orthodox doctrine and opinion. A small drip of radical ideas like obedience to the teaching magisterium of the Church. Small changes like showing the Pope in a positive light.
I wouldn’t have to fire John Allen, Jr – but the rest of the staff would be pretty hard to keep on. I would have to write all new columns, but until they were comfortable I would have for example a “Joan Chiittiister” – nobody would hardly notice the last name was spelled different. Over time this columnist could introduce ideas like the habit is a good thing and that there was a reason Jesus only choose men for the priesthood and we can’t change it. Again it would have to be a real slow change or the dissidents would go into convulsions at the idea. Maybe a Michael Sean Joe Bob Winters whose angry tone would mellow over time and actually exposes the idea that being pro-life and supporting pro-aborts is non-sensical. Maybe a Bishop Gumblehalfaton could bit by bit introduce such concepts that social justice includes saving the unborn. One writer could drip-by-drip introduce concepts like maybe Bishop Olmsted was absolutely right in his decision regarding St. Joseph’s hospital.
This would really be a tough job since my goal is always to bring more people to the truth, not just cast them out because of their dissident ideas. Brining that group to orthodoxy would need the help of a platoon of contemplative nuns.
One a side note I was thinking about the Bearded Spock universe and wondering if there is a universe where the National Catholic Reporter is called Ultra-Montanists by their distractors. A universe where Hans Kung supports papal infallibility and Joseph Ratzinger supports woman’s ordination. In this universe you could go to a Jesuit University and actually be taught the faith. But I guess I would be a dissident in that universe so I don’t want to dwell on this idea other than to apologize for any of my dissident-selves in the multiverse.
5 comments
Jeff – do you remember this piece that I wrote back in February?
Big Changes At The National Catholic Reporter
I too dream of taking over (either to reform or shut down, still not decided which way to take) the Fishwrap, America and The Tablet. As it is, I daily ask one of my patrons to put his heavy-duty heavenly prayers on this cause!
The first order of business would be to get a priest and lots of Holy Water.
No silver crucifix and candles?
Not so fast, guys. What would I do without my reverse touchstones? It is my litmus test. If America, Commonweal, US Catholic and the Reporter is against it, it MUST be good!
I only wish they had an “Omnis Obstat” from their local Ordinaries on the front cover; like they have on cigarette cartons.
Last word of first sentence of last paragraph. Did you mean ‘detractors’?