Being Catholic: Commonweal From the 1970s to the 1990s.

Fifty-odd years ago, Jacques Mafitain published a brief but incisive essay on "The Problem of the Catholic Press" as an appendix to his book, True Humanism, which dealt with a series of questions belonging to that section of philosophy which Aristotle and Saint Thomas called "Practical." The "problem" of the Catholic press which Maritain analyzed had nothing to do with a rise in printing costs or a decline in circulation figures or any of the other bread-and-butter problems which are the bane of every publisher's existence, but it was and still is a very "practical" problem nonetheless.

Writing as a philosopher, Maritain drew a distinction between "two essentially different types of periodicals, the one specifically Catholic and religious, and as a result Catholic by definition; the other specifically political or 'cultural,' which we must indubitably wish to be Catholic, but Catholic in inspiration only, not by denomination." Both types of periodical, he said, are necessary, but to ignore or even to blur the distinction between them, he insisted, inevitably leads to confusion.

Maritain's essay was not the last word on the "problem" of the Catholic press, but it is still very timely, especially in a country like our own where the majority of Catholic publications are "specifically Catholic or religious" and only a handful fit into the second of the two categories referred to above.

Periodicals of the second type, as Maritain points out, "do not engage the church---even if, as is to be desired, they draw their inspiration in the most courageous and intrepid manner from Christian wisdom...."That is to say, "they involve no other initiative than that of the particular persons or groups who have started them." Regrettably, we do not have enough publications of this kind in the United States. But, thanks be to God, we have had Commonweal since 1924, and it is still alive and well. Indeed, writing as one who was introduced to Commonweal in his teens, I would argue that the magazine is today as good as or better than ever-- and that's saying a lot.

From the very beginning, Commonweal's lay editors have drawn their inspiration-in the most courageous and intrepid manner--from Christian wisdom, and, almost always, have done so with extraordinary civility.

Rodger Van Allen's earlier study of Commonweal, The Commonweal and Amencan Catholics, published by Fortress in 1974, coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the magazine. The present follow-up volume, which anticipates Commonweal's forthcoming seventieth anniversary, brings his study up to the present. Like his earlier volume, it is so structured-- by topics, some of them neuralgic--as to be, in effect, not only a synoptic history of the magazine during the past two decades but also of American Catholicism during this turbulent post-Vatican II period. Parenthetically I might note that September will see the publication of another book also dealing in part with the history of Commonweal--an in-depth scholarly biography of the late George Shuster, one of the magazine's early associate editors (George Shuster: On the Side of Truth, by Thomas E. Blantz, University of Notre Dame Press).

For the convenience of the reader Van Allen has listed chronologically the members of Commonweal's staff from 1973 through 1993. They are a distinguished company. We owe a debt of gratitude to all of them and to their predecessors, but to no one more so than the indomitable Edward Skillin, who joined the staff in 1934 and, now in his eighties, is still commuting to the office every day and was until recently jogging to early Mass. Van Allen's concluding tribute to Skillin as a sterling Christian gentleman and as the keeper of Commnonweal's corporate conscience and the guardian of its institutional memory is richly deserved. Had it not been for him, Commonweal might have folded long ago--and what a terrible loss that would have been to American Catholicism.