Saturday, April 14, 2007

Thoughts on a Catholic Press

A special thanks to Miss Rice for inviting me to contribute to this blog, which I hope will be a promising venture to bring together good Catholics and good writing. In an essay on the need for a Catholic press, Hilaire Belloc once opined that a "Catholic press" is not one that is overtly Catholic, i.e., expounding upon the great dogmas of the faith or citing theological treatises in its writing; rather, a Catholic press--and the one that is needed--is a press that sees the world as it truly is, i.e., making full use of the arsenal of faith and reason. It is a press that that recognizes truth from error and seeks to bring others to the true, the good and the beautiful--for that is indeed why we have been created.

Thus, the Catholic press should and ought to speak not only to Catholics but to everyone. This is not to say that such a press should be silent on the theological or the explicitly ecclesial, certainly not. But it should nonetheless be able to intelligently comment on the issues of the day or bring forth literature that is common sensical and oriented towards man's end. This blog, in a small little corner of cyberspace, I hope will contribute to such an effort.

Ad multos annos!

Update: Though not the essay I was referring to, here is another by Belloc that touches on the same themes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Which Belloc essay was that? Citation? This looks to be a good blog! I look forward to reading more.

Anonymous said...

Likewise, I'd like to learn more about this essay. Delving into it will assist in defining how Catholics write.