One Year of the Catholic Herald

I recently had to confront this monumental decision: should I renew the “Catholic Herald – US edition”? For that magazine was launched just about a year ago. It’s now time to review how the US edition has fared since then.

The objective was alluring and ambitious:  to create a magazine providing intellectual leadership for American conservative Catholics.  In the US, it was a role last completely filled by Triumph magazine  – up to 1975, that is! The Herald’s new US edition could build on the success and visibility of the UK parent,  in which Damian Thompson had instilled new bite and focus.

I myself had doubts early on about this venture given the anti-Traditionalist animus of at least one prospective editor – who had even railed against the above- mentioned Triumph, shut down so many years before. But the US edition was launched with a splash – an oversubscribed gathering in New York plus, I heard, even an “afterparty.” It was a welcome display of panache and flair so rare in the Catholic conservative world. A wide variety of conservative greats were invited on board as potential writers.

Yet things almost immediately went south. One of the would-be contributors  – a certain Dawn Goldstein – immediately unleashed a vicious assault on the publication. Members of the Catholic Herald team fought back  – but then joined her in blasting the alleged “anti- Semitism” of one of their own recently published writers – Taki, one of the great supporters of conservatism. And within months both the US and UK editors were out the door. It seems the conservative  “big tent” was not so capacious after all. It is just one further proof of the inherent impossibility of the  “conservative Catholic” compromise – made starkly visible in the crisis created by the current Pope.

What survives is a decent publication offering a pleasant, non-challenging  version of “cultural conservativism” –  nice articles on culture, church history, spirituality and new books combined with summary coverage of current events.   Tough investigative journalism and a probing political, historical and theological analysis of the deviations of the papacy and local hierarchies are not, however, part of the scene. There is nothing like the recent articles in First Things on the “Amazonian” synod or the Papal Foundation. Or  Ed Condon’s recent journalism in the CNA on the Vatican’s financial scandals. True, hot topics are not necessarily avoided or swept under the rug – the Catholic Herald is not yet like the Catholic News Service or Catholic New York. Yet all too often even a candid, critical discussion of an issue ends in wishful thinking or credulity. 

So, for example, referring to the latest London real estate shenanigans of the Vatican:
“The controversy is likely to be a source of sadness for Pope Francis who was elected in 2013 with a mandate to reform Vatican finances. He pursued this goal energetically…” (October 25, 2019).
Or, on the Amazonian synod:
“Only a vast creative and relentless campaign of evangelization can hope to reverse this trend (of the de-catholicizing of the Amazon – SC). Will this be unleashed by the Amazon synod? Let’s pray that it
will…. .”  (November 1, 2019)

I find myself therefore still relying for news and analysis regarding all things Catholic on perusing daily six to eight websites – several of which are not in the English language. One of the best of these sources  is,  paradoxically, the ultra-progressive website of the German bishops. All in all, the US edition of the Catholic Herald is pleasant and informative reading  but has failed so far to rise to the challenge of leadership.  In an era of unprecedented crisis in the Church, that is a major failing.  Should I continue to subscribe? For $140, I  do not know…….

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