Beacon of Justice, Community, and Hope
How NCR has sustained independent journalism from Vatican II to Pope Francis
Published on 17. September 2024
Book
Hardback
734 pages
978-1-64180-189-8 (ISBN)
Description
Discover the 60-year history of the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company, sustaining NCR's commitment to covering the nation, the world, the Catholic Church, and the Catholic faith. From the Second Vatican Council through the era of Pope Francis, this nonprofit has served as the leading independent Catholic news source reporting on the church's involvement in war and peace, ecojustice, and cultural issues worldwide.
Lawrence Guillot's history also is the story of one in five Americans who identify as Catholic, more than 50 million people whose lives have been shaped by the world's largest Christian denomination. Starting with reporting on the dramatic changes ushered in by Vatican II that affected every Catholic parish in the world, this book tells the story of courageous journalists who banded together to report on those often-turbulent waves of modernization. The story focuses on the huge challenges, some nearly fatal to the publishing company, that they had to overcome to keep the presses rolling and, today, to keep the NCR's extensive online and multimedia offerings rolling onto the internet.
And, in telling that story, this book offers a history of the Catholic Church as it passed through one of the most vibrant and consequential periods in its history and continues to serve its nearly 1.4-billion baptized members today.
In praising the book, author, journalist, and filmmaker Paul Wilkes says: "As we travel through 60 years of the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company in this book, we witness fearless reporting on church and society as no other publication could or would achieve. NCR proved to be the one place to go for not only unbiased coverage of the Catholic church, but for social justice reporting throughout the world. Its reporters and editors roamed the nation and the world to bring back stories that provided not just news but the informed analysis we needed to understand the tumultuous changes we all were going through. ... Reading this book, you will realize there is no other publication like it. ... The book is a testimony to how NCR not only stirs our minds but nurtures our faith as well."
NCR Editor and Publisher Emeritus Thomas C. Fox writes, "Over the decades, I've heard it repeatedly from readers and supporters: 'NCR gives me hope.' No other remark gives me such satisfaction. As a trusted source of information and a community of open-minded, idealistic believers, NCR offers hope, a virtue without which life becomes dull and depressing. ... As I look to the future I see young activists adding to the imagination of what it means to be Catholic. Shaped in a new era with enormous challenges, they are writing the next chapter of the church. It will be different and authentic. ... As I write this, I feel their energy. I have witnessed their spirit. It is with gratitude and hope I look to the future."
More details
Language
English
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 47 mm
Weight
1323 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-64180-189-8 (9781641801898)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Lawrence Guillot is unusually well equipped to research and write this history of the National Catholic Reporter. A former priest with a doctorate in theology, he has run nonprofits and provided expert consulting services to firms facing the kinds of issues challenging NCR. He was acquainted with NCR's founders and has followed its evolution closely. When Pope John XXIII announced in 1959 his plans to convene the Second Vatican Council, Guillot was a masters' degree candidate in theology in Rome, living at the North American College. After ordination to the priesthood in 1960 and the degree completed, he did two years of pastoral work in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. His associates included NCR's first board chair, publisher, and editor. He returned to Rome to begin doctoral work in ecumenical theology at the Gregorian University in 1963-65 and was present at the second and third Sessions of Vatican II. As he had written articles for the Kansas City Star-Times and the Catholic Reporter, he was able to obtain a press pass and attend debriefings on events of Vatican Council II. When the new Joint Commission on Anglican-Roman Catholic Relations was formed, Guillot was appointed Joint Secretary of the Joint Commission with the task of managing the working documents and reports of the Commission. He completed the dissertation and published the conclusions in Ministry in Ecumenical Perspective (Gregorian University, 1969). Active in ecumenical affairs, he was a regular contributor to The Journal of Ecumenical Affairs, the Ecumenist, and Unity Trends. After serving as a Catholic priest for ten years, Guillot petitioned for and received a dispensation from the clerical state and married in 1970. He and his wife Leslie, a native of Saint Louis, chose Kansas City as home base. They have two daughters, Ann and Laura, and four grandchildren. He refocused his professional life on community service and over the next 40 years managed a training center for VISTA volunteers, was the first ombudsman/executive director of a human relations/civil rights office in county government, associate director of a large nonprofit community development housing agency, dean of continuing education in the metropolitan community college system, executive director of a consulting service to nonprofit social service agencies, and his own consulting service. Together with another executive director, he published Manage for Excellence: A Workbook for the Nonprofit Manager (Kansas City, 1985). From 1985 to 2011, he served as senior graduate adjunct professor for the Graduate School of Public Affairs of Park University. He co-designed the curriculum for a new degree in the management of nonprofit organizations and taught classes in Social Policy, the Nature of the Nonprofit Sector, and the Management of Nonprofit Organizations, first in the classroom and then online versions.