Viewpoint
Hoyts belated award honors NCR, too
By ALBERT de ZUTTER
The Catholic Press Association has
finally done something it should have done a long time ago: We the members of
the association have finally conferred our highest award on Robert G. Hoyt,
founding editor of the National Catholic Reporter (NCR).
While Hoyt has not been associated with the NCR for more
than a quarter of a century, it was clear that the St. Francis de Sales award,
given to him at the CPA meeting in Chicago on May 28 in the presence of his
colleagues, was for that newspaper and the effect it has had on Catholic
journalism in the United States.
His achievement can and should be recognized by Catholics of all
persuasions who care about and are actively engaged in the life of the
church.
After Hoyt received his award at the luncheon at the Westin Hotel,
a priest came to his table to congratulate him and put Hoyts contribution
to the Catholic press in a nutshell.
Ive been in the Catholic press since 1958, the
priest said. You made us honest.
Thats a short but accurate summary of the effect Bob
Hoyts venture into independent Catholic journalism has had on the
Catholic press in America.
Which is not to say that there werent honest reporters,
editors, newspapers and magazines before Bob Hoyt came on the scene, or that
the Catholic press wouldnt have undergone a transformation anyway, as a
result of the Second Vatican Council. Dorothy Day and her Catholic
Worker colleagues never hesitated to say what was on their minds. There was
also Commonweal, and a handful of Catholic newspaper editors and
reporters who had transferred from daily newspapers, and who chafed at the
irony that they could be more forthright in their secular settings than they
could be in the church that put so much emphasis on the truth.
The moment of truth was approaching anyway, what with all the
scholarship that had preceded and, in a way, prompted the Second Vatican
Council. Pope John XXIII decided that it was time for the church to come out of
its defensive shell, to end the era of apologetics and to launch a new wave of
positive evangelization. The council itself was an exercise in truth-telling.
There was a crucial vote early on in which the bishops decided to write their
own documents rather than simply endorsing those prepared by the Vatican
officials. With the council, the church did a major, courageous self-study,
re-emphasizing the shared responsibility of the worlds bishops for the
guidance of the church and the essential role of every member for its mission,
among other things.
Prior to the council, theological or doctrinal debates were
usually reported defensively, often presenting only the official or
correct response to a challenge, while not fully reporting the
challenge itself.
The council changed all that. The general press got interested in
the proceedings. The New Yorker published revealing pieces by
Xavier Rynne, a pseudonym for an official observer at the council,
and Catholic newspapers joined in publishing news of the debates at the
council. Those debates made it clear that there were sharp differences and also
made it possible for Catholic diocesan newspapers to publish theological
debates from all sides, demonstrating that the establishment point of view was
not the only valid interpretation.
Hoyt recognized the trend and decided the time was ripe for an
independent Catholic newspaper. Under his leadership, The Catholic
Reporter, newspaper of the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese, had
already achieved national recognition among Catholic readers. The number of
subscriptions from outside the diocese led Hoyt and his colleagues to believe
there was a market for a national newspaper with a forthright reporting and
editorial stance.
The National Catholic Reporter was launched in the diocesan
offices of the diocesan Catholic Reporter in 1964, with the blessing of
then-Bishop Charles H. Helmsing. The growing staff of the National Catholic
Reporter moved to its present quarters a block and a half away in 1966.
And so, within the larger context of the new atmosphere in the
church created by the Second Vatican Council, the NCR helped make it
acceptable for more Catholic newspapers to adopt a principled journalistic
approach. To be sure, not every diocesan newspaper took advantage of the new
possibilities. There are still too many instances of timidity and lack of
understanding of the crucial role of the Catholic press in forming and
informing an effective Catholic community.
But, and this has been perhaps the most important effect, the news
service provided by the U.S. bishops, now called the Catholic News Service
(CNS), did undergo a transformation from its pre-council timidity to its
current professionalism and objectivity, to the benefit of readers of
newspapers that use its services consistently.
That Hoyt and the National Catholic Reporter played an
important catalytic role in the transformation of the U.S. Catholic press is a
historical fact and a signal achievement that went officially unrecognized by
the Catholic Press Association for more than 30 years. The contributions of
many members of the CPA to Catholic journalism were recognized in the meantime
but, until this year, perhaps the greatest single contribution of the century
to the field of Catholic journalism had not received official notice.
Fr. John Reedy, then editor of Ave Maria magazine, was the
1967 recipient of the St. Francis de Sales award. In his acceptance speech he
said words to the effect that the St. Francis de Sales award would not have its
full significance until the CPA presented it to Robert G. Hoyt. To its belated
credit, the CPA has now done that.
Albert de Zutter, editor of The Catholic Key, the
newspaper of the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese, was one of Bob
Hoyts colleagues in the early days of NCR. This article is
reprinted with permission of the Key.
National Catholic Reporter, July 2,
1999
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