Crisis magazine folding after current issue

[Ender]

I don’t recall a single article in Crisis on the crisis in the Chaldean Catholic community in Iraq.

They did have an article on the Eastern Catholics (which would include the Chaldeans) as well as the situation of the Catholics in the Holy Land. I guess you can’t have everything.

Maybe if Crisis had been more balanced and less secular - they were supposed to be quasi catholic - things would have turned out differently.

They were neither secular nor quasi Catholic. They did have a point of view on specific political issues but as another poster said, if the arguments were reasonable and well presented it shouldn’t matter. There was a lot more at work in their demise than mere political disaffection.

Ender

 

[rien]

Conservative Crisis is folding while Liberal Commonweal survives still (in an era where everyone suggests that the latter type of Catholic is greying and dying off). I’m not sure what this says. But it says something.

The liberal catholic magazines seem to be holding up better. I think the sterotype of the aging gray-haired liberal catholic is just that. Let’s be honest, orhtodox catholic publications are struggling to stay afloat. Maybe the audience just isn’t there?

 

[rien]

Wasn’t it Crisis magazine that criticized Michael Rose’s book “Goodbye good men” that exposed the myth of the Priesthood shortage??

I beleive it was. NOR has been on Crisis magazine forever because of this and its support of the Bush Iraq invasion. NOR is really strange. It is about as anti-Iraq as Cindy Sheehan yet ultra-orthodox on other things. It even sort of defends the possibility of evolution with God’s parameters in its current issue. It certainly does not hold to the 6,000 years literal readers of the Bible do.

 

[rien]

Perhaps that, when it comes to publishing a viable magazine, there’s more to it that being just liberal or conservative?

I know that I can get more out of a well argued and well presented article that takes a position I cannot support than an emotional, ranty piece that takes a position I can support. I’m a subscriber, and avid reader, of First Things, in spite of the fact that I find myself taking issue with some of its political assertions. (This magazine is, of course, specifically concerned with religion in public life.) But I am not turned off because I find the content informative and well presented, even though I do not agree with some of the conclusions.

It’s a bit like singing praises. Even if they are offered to one who is truly praiseworthy, I don’t want to hear them if the offerer simply can’t sing.

Blessings,

Gerry

I agree. I hate to admit this but I still subsribe to NOR. At times they make me so mad I want to cancel then along comes a great article like their current one on evolution.

 

[rien]

They did have an article on the Eastern Catholics (which would include the Chaldeans) as well as the situation of the Catholics in the Holy Land. I guess you can’t have everything.

They were neither secular nor quasi Catholic. They did have a point of view on specific political issues but as another poster said, if the arguments were reasonable and well presented it shouldn’t matter. There was a lot more at work in their demise than mere political disaffection.

Ender

The Chaldeans are being exterminated from Iraq since the invasion. Chronicles and NOR have been pointing this out for a while now. Crisi as far as I know has not done a single article on the plight of the Chaldeans as a result of the US invasion of Iraq. A general article on Eastern Rite churches does not qualify IMO.

 

[estesbob]

I agree. I hate to admit this but I still subsribe to NOR. At times they make me so mad I want to cancel then along comes a great article like their current one on evolution.

If you skip the letters to the editor and their snarky replies and their editorials its a great magazine. One thing about NOR-they dislike preety much everything and everybody

 

[rien]

If you skip the letters to the editor and their snarky replies and their editorials its a great magazine. One thing about NOR-they dislike preety much everything and everybody

Hate to admit this but the letters are the first thing I read in NOR. I love the snarky stuff.

NOR is about the only orthodox Catholic magazine that has grown in recent years. Its still well under 20,000 subscribers so, like the other “orthodox” magazines, it s status is tenuous.

NOR doe salwys seem to surprise me. Their article on evolution in the current issue is something I’d expect in Commonweal. But I’d never expect the very strong life postion of NOR in Commonweal. NOR is not lukewarm and its why its one of only 2 catholic magazines I subsribe to. It used to be like 5 or 6.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Crisis magazine was originally published with the title “Catholicism in Crisis”. Shortly thereafter, the name was shortened to “Crisis”.

And the original editor and publisher was Ralph McInerny, a very famous and prolific Catholic writer. [You may know him from the Father Dowling series … check your library mystery shelves. He also wrote mysteries under the name Monica Quill, if I recall correctly.]

Originally Catholicism in Crisis / Crisis was based in Notre Dame, Indiana. And was started up sometime around 1982.

 

[quiet52]

I agree. I hate to admit this but I still subsribe to NOR. At times they make me so mad I want to cancel then along comes a great article like their current one on evolution.

What is NOR?

I’ve enjoyed many of the articles in Crisis and I hope more will be forthcoming on the Internet.

Any recommendations for other well-done orthodox Catholic magazines?

 

[childofmary1143]

What is NOR?

I’ve enjoyed many of the articles in Crisis and I hope more will be forthcoming on the Internet.

Any recommendations for other well-done orthodox Catholic magazines?

NOR stands for New Oxford Review.

 

[dympnha]

Hooray!

 

[rien]

What is NOR?

I’ve enjoyed many of the articles in Crisis and I hope more will be forthcoming on the Internet.

Any recommendations for other well-done orthodox Catholic magazines?

I like Catholic World Report and Inside the Vatican. Both are orthodox. CWR has lots of international and national church news.

 

[Amethyst]

Way back at the start of this thread, someone asked if production costs of magazines really were rising. Yes, they are – and smaller-circulation magazines will be disproportionately affected by the changes.

The US Postal Service (which has been charged by Congress to make itself into at least a self-supporting operation) is giving lower postage rates to magazines whose publishers do certain kinds of computerized addressing and presorting of materials to be sent. Large publishers already have such systems in place; smaller ones don’t. And magazines with a smaller subscription base may not be able to realize enough savings in preprocessing to make up for the increases in postage that have just gone through.

So I think we will see several smaller magazines go under in the next year or two… Therefore, subscribe to the magazines you care about, the better to keep them with you.

The publishers of This Rock did NOT ask me to make this announcement.

 

[chicago]

Hooray!

???

 

[gam197]

About 1 week ago I picked up a copy of Crisis in my church. We have a small reading library in the basement. It seems like a good magazine. I like that it is not too intellectual.

Deal Hudson was a minister who converted to the catholic faith. As a professor of Fordham in 1994, he had a one night relationship with an eighteen year old and lost his teaching position and was fined. In 1996 he was editor for Crisis magazine but when this story came out later about his past behavior he quit his position as editor but occasionly writes for them. This may not be helping the magazine. He is not the editor.

I listen to Rush Limbaugh and I know he’s been married a few times and has had a drug problem and makes alot of money but he is good and has the guts to take on the abortion issue.

Compare Crisis to the many non-catholic yet catholic identified magazines like Commonweal, National Catholic Reporter and even the New Oxford Review which doesn’t read too catholic to me and Crisis magazine atleast has a catholic identity.

I’ve heard the Wanderer is good.

 

[chicago]

About 1 week ago I picked up a copy of Crisis in my church. We have a small reading library in the basement. It seems like a good magazine. I like that it is not too intellectual.

I do think that a magazine on the level which they were going for is a good thing. But whether or not there is a market for it is, perhaps, questionable.

Deal Hudson was a minister who converted to the catholic faith. As a professor of Fordham in 1994, he had a one night relationship with an eighteen year old and lost his teaching position and was fined. In 1996 he was editor for Crisis magazine but when this story came out later about his past behavior he quit his position as editor but occasionly writes for them. This may not be helping the magazine. He is not the editor.

And yet Deal was, perhaps, it’s most noted editor who headed up the publication for some time and moved it into popular awareness. He was a regular on EWTN, even, and had his own series. While I suppose that his involvement in a scandal may have hurt the magazine’s reputation some, I’m not sure how much of a factor that would be at this point. He did have a sensibility which was a little more gritty and real, yet truly intelluctual rather than simply reactionary. This was, IMO, a plus.

Compare Crisis to the many non-catholic yet catholic identified magazines like Commonweal, National Catholic Reporter and even the New Oxford Review which doesn’t read too catholic to me and Crisis magazine atleast has a catholic identity.

I’ve heard the Wanderer is good.

Wanderer, NOR, Commonweal, NCR… no extremes HERE!

 

[gam197]

The cost of these magazines is a major factor. Yet most of us pay for the daily newspaper and that certainly cost alot more.

Maybe the internet has hurt. Many people go online for catholic thought. I don’t get it about magazines. If the Wanderer(a weekly newspaper) is as extreme as you suggested and I really haven’t read it much but many catholics I know do like it, why bother to read a catholic newspaper or magazine? When I read a magazine, I want someone else to lift me up in the catholic faith, to confirm that what the bible and church teaches is truth.

I am not an intellectual looking for some new great thought which kind of reminds me of philosophy.

 

[gam197]

I guess I should have clarified what I was saying. I don’t want to pick up a catholic magazine which has an article saying birth control should be accepted by the church or priest should be allowed to marry. To me that has already been discussed for thousands of years and so if the catholics don’t get it by now, when will they?

I don’t mind if they discuss the difficulty of Natual Family Planning or teen pregnacy or the difficulties that many nuns face or the difficulties of being a single older priest That is fine.

If they can atleast meet those requirements of not attacking church doctrine but reinforcing it then whatever else they have to say I will listen to, whether if it is an article on the war or the death penalty.

 

[Sheeniac]

Many publications are also 501c3. I think the Natl Catholic Register is, and I plan to donate to it.

 

[chicago]

I don’t get it about magazines. If the Wanderer(a weekly newspaper) is as extreme as you suggested and I really haven’t read it much but many catholics I know do like it, why bother to read a catholic newspaper or magazine? When I read a magazine, I want someone else to lift me up in the catholic faith, to confirm that what the bible and church teaches is truth.

I think that there is a place for the kind of thing you are looking for. It is likely more on the level of inspiriational writing, however.

You do say something of interest in these words by noting that you want something which “confirms” your beliefs as truth. I think that, ultimately, this is what many journals attemt to do. Now, of course, their perspective could be widely variant. But they are, perhaps, catering to an audience which wants to be patted on the back and have their ideas promoted as a sort of gospel. So perhaps this is the key to success. Find a market which will support advocacy of perspective. People aren’t, afterall, looking to be changed, they are desiring to be consoled and to have their positions ratified with pride.