THE CONDITION OF THE CATHOLIC PRESS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 184, 6 October 1876, Page 14

THE CONDITION OF THE CATHOLIC PRESS.

12* all parts of the country the Catholic papers are crying for aid, " Help, help, or we perish." They are continually nudging their delinquent subscribers to pay their bills, individually small, but in the aggregate making a large sum. They are asking their friends to aid them in extending their circulation, and promise to make improvements with increased resources. Week after week these calls for aid are issued, and scarcely a single Catholic journal in the country does not join in the request. The condition of the Catholic press, unveiled by these repeated and universal appeals for support, is a shame to the Catholics of the land. For every Catholic is congnizant of this wretched state of affairs ; he knows that these papers have been started in his interest, that they are fighting for his sake, for the cause of his religion, for the cause of truth, that they are defending the Church against the attacks of its enemies, that they are unveiling the sophistries and falsehoods of the sectarian press, that they are as sentinels on a watch-tower, ever on the alert, ever ready to sally forth and attack the assailants of the cause of Christ, and to defend His spouse, the Church. The reason why Catholic papers do not receive better support must, it is true, be partly found in the hard times that for three years have overshadowed the land; but must in great measure be ascribed to the negligence and indifference of well to do Catholics. The poor are always ready to give their mite to the cause of God in whatever shape it appeals to their generosity. But the uioderat«ly rich or wealthy Catholic sees unmoved the struggle of his

religious paper to exist and do good, and never thinks of coming to the rescue. He considers the paper dry, uninteresting and be* hind the times, and, he says, in fact, he can't afford to take it, although several magazines and story papers find their way regularly to his fireside. But, besides the indifference of the laity, a contemporary affirms that the struggling condition of the Catholic press for existence must be laid to the door of the clergy. He says they are ready enough to find fault should anything go wrong, that they censure this omission or that oversight, but take good care that they do nothing to prevent such missteps. He says that the majority of them, take no interest in extending the circulation and influence of Catholic papers, which he declares to be their duty, and which he says he calls upon them to do, not as a favor, but as a right. m The cost of a Catholic paper varies from $1 50 to $3 50 a year .^B . . . - Now there is not a Catholic family in the country that cannot give from three to six cents a week for a Catholic paper, and there is not a Catholic family that should not subscribe. Were Catholics as ready to support their journals aa the members of the sects are to maintain their organs, the Catholic press would soon cease their appeals and lamentations. Encouraged by the generosity of their supporters, they would turn their whole attention to the exposition and defence of truth, and the result would soon be evident in larger harvests of good than they now reap. — ' Baltimore Mirror.'