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| Fr. Matt Malone, S.J. |
America is not a magazine, though we publish one; nor is America a Web site, though we have one of those as well. America is a Catholic ministry, and both of those words— Catholic and ministry—are carefully chosen. We are not journalists who happen to be Catholic, but Catholics who happen to be journalists. That is not to denigrate or neglect the good and valuable work that the non-Catholics on our staff do every day; it is simply to express our fundamental commitment.
America does not labor in the service of mere speech, words with a lower case w; nor are we in pursuit of some idealized, dreamy, Platonic-style discourse. Rather, we labor in the service of the Word with an upper case W, the self-communication of God in Jesus Christ. Admittedly, these words “might sound a bit pretentious,” as Father Davis once said about a similar statement of his own. Journals of opinion are constantly at risk of taking themselves too seriously.
America is no exception here either; we freely admit that some of our opinions can have a preachy, eat-your-peas quality. Still, it is nonetheless true that America’s fundamental commitment is to God in Jesus Christ. This must be so if we are to fulfill the purpose envisioned for America by its founders: to furnish “a discussion of actual questions and a study of vital problems from the Christian viewpoint.”
1 comment:
Is this a joke? America magazine is a sounding-board for dissidents. It is about as Catholic as any Jesuit University (i.e. Georgetown). All you need to do is look at how they turn-coated and treated our Pope Emeritus to see they are simply not worth reading. Shame on them.
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