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Inside
NCR NCRs advertising staff at churchs cutting
edge
By now Summer Listings I has leaped out or fallen
out of your NCR. A quick glance will reveal what an enormous undertaking
it is and what a great job NCRs advertising department does. All
those ads are a sign of the times.
If anyone tells you the church is dying, just show them Summer
Listings. The church has seldom been so alive. Ideas, movements, debates,
crusades, retreats, conferences, courses, workshops, from theology to
you-name-it, are creating a ferment and excitement that the world has scarcely
seen since the golden Middle Ages when the new religious orders, new
universities and other such manifestations brought spirituality back to
religion and a new daring replaced the previous doldrums.
This intellectual and spiritual phenomenon crept up on us. We had
grown accustomed for centuries to leaving the management of religion to the
hierarchy, who, while adept in many ecclesial areas, are generally not prepared
by temperament or training to be pioneers. The sense of the faithful, by
contrast, is located on the ground floor. Wherever the church is healthy,
its local and vice versa. Right now, that sensus fidelium is
bursting out all over, most obviously in this country where prosperity and
freedom foster it, but also around the world, where its impact will be even
greater.
Like Summer Listings, our classified ads have expanded in recent
years. They, too, are an expression of the emerging laity. Before, chanceries
and motherhouses moved church personnel around. Now, lay persons must advertise
themselves, and church institutions must advertise their needs. NCR is
glad to help and grateful to our inordinately talented staff.
National Catholic Reporter, March 6,
1998
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