National Catholic Reporter at Fifty

Reviews / Votes

The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) provides a platform for discourse on issues from a Catholic perspective. Editor Jones, who posits that the publication offers an important forum for laity to express their opinions, supplies a behind-the-scenes look at the paper over the course of its history. NCR's ongoing 'Five Elements' consist of 'race & poverty, peace & U.S. foreign policy, nuns & women, sexuality, and church & papacy.' Within these subjects are more specific topics such as birth control, racism, celibacy, and women's ordination. A continuing major concern is the sex abuse scandal involving priests. Jones uses the advantage of his experience and in-house relationships to describe how NCR was formed and developed and examines various editorial perspectives and styles throughout the years. Excerpts illustrate and reflect the news of the times. This is a personal project for Jones and a way to encourage interest in NCR. He refers to his book as a 'rough draft' and calls for a 'three-volume footnoted history' in his introduction. VERDICT For NCR readers, Catholics, and journalism students. * Library Journal * N.C.R. has had many fine moments, and Jones does a good job of putting the paper's achievements in the context of the changing times. Those who want to walk through the great controversies over U.S. foreign policy, the role of women in the church, economic justice, sexual morality and the power of the papacy as viewed in N.C.R. will enjoy this book. . . .As an admirer of N.C.R., I found that this book deepened my appreciation for the paper, starting with the sheer unlikelihood of its longevity. It made me want to know more. In his introduction, Jones makes clear that his book is not intended as a full history of The National Catholic Reporter. Rather, it is 'the inside story told by an insider who cares.' And a noteworthy story it is. * America: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture * For true church history buffs and NCR fans, I'd recommend you get a copy of Arthur Jones' newest book, National Catholic Reporter at Fifty: The Story of the Pioneering Paper and Its Editors. It is a rather intimate portrait of NCR and gives some behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the big events in NCR's history. * National Catholic Reporter * The drama and frequently inspiring stories of the editors and publishers is the strength of Jones's book. . . .[T]his book deserves a place in all libraries. * American Catholic Studies * Consider this for an instant. What would you, a thinking Catholic, have done year after year without the National Catholic Reporter? Unthinkable, right? NCR has been the one unbiased source we have turned to when we really wanted to know what was going on in this at once magnificent and at times misguided Church of ours. With deep love for the Church, through a prism of journalistic excellence, NCR has kept alive our faith and Vatican II's vision. To read NCRs 50 year history is to relive the struggles in a new, fresh way, to meet again the true saints who stood up, regardless, and to be re-inspired to be the best people and Catholics we can be. -- Paul Wilkes, Author of In Due Season: A Catholic Life, and The Seven Secrets of Successful Catholics Over the last fifty years, many of us have often said 'thank God for NCR!' What would we have known about our Church, and about many issues in public policy, without NCR's help? Arthur Jones helps us celebrate this remarkable half century of American Catholic life with a lively, interesting, intelligent 'personal story--the inside story told by an insider who cares.' Jones cares about the paper and its people, and he cares too about the good causes they have tried to serve and helped us to serve. Thank God for NCR! -- David O'Brien, professor emeritus, College of the Holy Cross; distinguished visiting professor, University of Dayton This book could be called 'Fifty years of scoops,' as it is about the history of the paper that revealed the findings of the secret papal birth control commission Pope Paul VI overrode in 1968 and that broke the story of priestly sex abuse scandals 15 years ahead of the Boston Globe. When in the 90s it uncovered the story of African nuns raped by priests 'looking for AIDS-free sex,' as Jones says, 'it was NCR that carried yet another story no one wanted to hear, and none could ignore.'

Of course, NCR is so much more than the sum of its many exclusives, founded during the Second Vatican Council and defending the spirit of the council in the five decades since. These days, no one covers our church better, and Arthur Jones tells us how that happened; all it took, it turns out, was 50 years of faith, love, work, and the fearlessness summed up in a little plaque that now hangs over an early NCR editor's desk at home: 'Prophets are not particularly pleasant people. It is their function to unsettle, to disturb, to criticize, and to convert. The reaction of establishment authorities to prophetic voices is not usually pleasant either...Some they suppress--and some they crucify.' And some, like NCR's, survive anyway. -- Melinda Henneberger, Washington Post Arthur Jones' National Catholic Reporter at Fifty is a panorama of people whose vision of church and passion for truth has been a light to the rest of us through years of institutional chaos. They prodded the church to keep its promises; they prodded us to keep the faith. Whatever the pressure put on the paper itself, they showcased the best of the reforms and, for the sake of the whole church, kept the hopes of Vatican II alive. Most of all, this book is, as well, a review of what it meant for each of us to be Catholic in these tumultuous last 50 years. Read this book and be grateful for those who led us to even deeper depths of our own faith when that faith could easily have waned. -- Sister Joan Chittister, author of Called to Question; columnist in National Catholic Reporter