Today is World Communications Day, for which Pope Francis has released a message. World Communications Day is the only worldwide celebration called for by the Second Vatican Council (Inter mirifica, 1963), and today is its 48th occurrence.
You might find it interesting (and amusing) that St. John’s Abbey has supported all sorts of Catholic media. I recently came across this in the in-house publication Confrere in 1964:
F A T H E R A B B O T ‘ S R E M A R K S
WHEN I THINK IT WOULD BE OF SPECIAL INTEREST TO THOSE OF YOU NOT AT THE Abbey, I will give a brief account of Chapter meetings held and decisions made. For example, at the recent Chapter it was decided to accept $3,500 as full payment of a loan of $10,000 made to the Wanderer Printing Company on June 12, 1945; the sum of $3,500 had been paid to us previously. Also five shares of Wanderer stock that we had were returned to them. At this same Chapter, we agreed to make a loan of $15,000 to the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company of Kansas City, Missouri, through the help of companies that work with personal loans with fair credit so that this new national weekly newspaper can begin publication soon.
In both instances it was thought to be very appropriate for the members of our Community of St. John’s to recognize the fact that we have been greatly blessed with success in our own apostolate of the press and should therefore render assistance of this kind to other Catholic publications when asked to do so.
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In 2014 dollars (i.e. adjusted for inflation), The Wanderer was forgiven nearly $50,000, and The National Catholic Reporter was given a bit over $110,000. The Wanderer almost went under in the Depression in the 1930s, but St. John’s Abbey came to the rescue. The Wanderer and The National Catholic Reporter are two Catholic publications. Some have noticed a difference in their editorial stance.
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