Inside
NCR Thoughts on peace and on winning awards
Just before this weeks issue
went to press, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic signed a peace accord with
NATO. The airwaves turned thick with recitation of details and speculation
about how long before the hundreds of thousands of refugees could return to
Kosovo.
It might be a natural response to want to put this episode behind
us with a sigh of relief that an ugly chapter is ending on a positive note. In
reality, though, the victims -- Serbs and Albanians -- are left with the
consequences of the nightmare: the overwhelming task of rebuilding cities and
rehabilitating lives.
And little has been settled in the way of figuring out how to deal
with the next Milosevic or the next regional hot spot. So in this issue we
continue a line of inquiry that began on our pages in the May 21 issue with
Pamela Schaeffers report, Human rights, peace activists split on
Kosovo. Some activists at the time confessed to a certain ambivalence
over what position to take on the war in the Balkans.
This week we put the question more directly to an interesting
range of advocates of nonviolence: If not military force, then
whats the answer? The responses are engaging and creative.
Our hope is that the cover story package and editorial will
provoke more thought about how to get beyond violence in the post-Cold War
world.
Robert G. Hoyt, founding editor of
the National Catholic Reporter, was named the winner of the Catholic
Press Associations St. Francis de Sales Award late last month in Chicago.
The award, named for the patron saint of journalists, was announced during the
Catholic Press Associations annual convention.
The winner is selected by mail-in ballot of CPA members.
Candidates are nominated for their outstanding contributions to Catholic
journalism. The award is CPAs highest honor.
Hoyt, who has been senior writer at Commonweal for the last
11 years, began his career in 1946 in Denver at the Register chain of
diocesan newspapers. In 1950, Hoyt helped inaugurate a Catholic daily
newspaper, the Sun Herald, in Kansas City, Mo. From 1957 to 1966 he
edited The Catholic Reporter in Kansas City. However, he is best known
in Catholic circles as having been NCRs first editor.
He was cited for creating a first-rate, independent Catholic
newspaper [that] set a standard which has had a profound impact on the
character and professionalism of Catholic journalism.
Hoyt is the first living NCR journalist to receive the St.
Francis de Sales award. Two other members of the NCR staff, Donald
Thorman, the late publisher, and Penny Lernoux, the late Latin America affairs
writer, received the award posthumously in 1978 and 1990.
When other CPA awards were handed
out, NCRs examination of the Philadelphia archdiocese and Cardinal
Anthony Bevilacqua by former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Ralph
Cipriano in the June 19, 1998, issue won first place in the best investigative
reporting category.
Another first place award, for best feature story, went to
assistant news editor and staff writer Teresa Malcolm for her report on
Thailand in the Dec. 26, 1997, issue. Malcolms piece chronicles a return
to the country where she spent two years in the early 1990s as a Peace Corps
Volunteer.
Special projects editor Pamela Schaeffer won second place in the
investigative reporting category for a piece detailing the circumstances behind
the firing of seminary professor Aaron Milavec from the Athenaeum in Cincinnati
(NCR, April 24, 1998).
Schaeffer also won third place in the feature story category for a
piece on Voodoo in the Dec. 4, 1998, issue; a third place and honorable mention
for personality profiles of Jesuit Fr. Brad Reynolds, writer of mystery novels
(NCR, Feb. 27, 1998), and Gary Macy, chairman of the theology department
at the University of San Diego who specializes in investigating medieval
manuscripts (NCR, Jan. 9, 1998); and an honorable mention for sports
writing for her cover story, McGwires blast brings redemption
(NCR, Sept. 19, 1998).
Opinion editor John L. Allen Jr. won second place for best news
report on an international event with cover stories reporting on an
extraordinary national gathering of Austrian Catholics who issued a call for
sweeping church reform (NCR, Nov. 6, 1998). He also won an honorable
mention for best analysis for extensive reporting on the controversy over
inclusive language in the new American lectionary (NCR, June 6, 1998,
Sept. 25, 1998).
Music reviewer Robin Taylor took a third place for best regular
column for several pieces on contemporary music and spirituality.
The paper won second place in two categories, for best editorial
and for general excellence.
The NCR advertising departments Chris Curry and
Marcie Ryan won first place for best media kit.
The winning stories can be found in the back issues on
NCRs website. Subscribers can access the back issues with a
password. Go to http://www.natcath.org/ncr_onli.htm
The award to Cipriano holds special
significance since he was soundly vilified by the archdioceses chief
public relations strategist, Brian Tierney, who compared Cipriano to a
low-grade infection that keeps coming back. Tierney also judged
NCR tremendously irresponsible for publishing the story.
Ciprianos boss, Inquirer editor Robert Rosenthal,
apparently was also displeased that his reporters work appeared in
NCR, even though Cipriano had first offered the reporting to the
Inquirer. In an interview with The Washington Post about the
NCR story, Rosenthal accused Cipriano, among other things, of having
an agenda, even, it is worth noting, as he continued publishing the
reporters work on the front page of the Inquirer. Rosenthal
retracted some of his comments in a follow-up letter to the Post but
refused to publicly apologize to Cipriano, who then sued his boss and was
subsequently fired. The case is now going through the courts.
All along, the implications were that Cipriano had some private
grudge against the church at large or the diocese or Bevilacqua. We thought all
along that he simply had a nose for a good story and relentless determination
in seeing that it was told.
The judges for the CPA, an organization that counts among its
members The Catholic Standard and Times of Philadelphia, whose publisher
is Cardinal Bevilacqua, came to the same conclusion. Ciprianos
exhaustive look at Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia is the type of
hard-hitting investigative journalism that is only possible at an independent
Catholic paper. Cipriano raises some serious questions about Bevilacquas
leadership, particularly with regard to his lavish spending and his lack of
accountability to the people of the diocese who were affected by his decisions.
It is clear that Cipriano put considerable time and effort researching records
and interviewing those associated with the cardinal, both in Philadelphia and
in Pittsburgh.
Almost a year after Ciprianos work ran in NCR, the
Inquirer published an extensive three-part series on the state of the
church in Philadelphia. But the readers in Philadelphia still are missing a
major part of the story. The series barely touches on the serious money and
accountability issues that are at the heart of Ciprianos story.
An update from columnist Tim
Unsworth:
Im better, much better. The infection is still
draining, but the fever has gone. Im still weak but can walk some
distance and do dishes. I dont see the colon surgeon for another month
and have been advised to see the oncologist and to get the eight-week chemo
started. Chemo will be relatively mild and will reduce the chances of the
cancer returning by 30 percent. I would settle for a 1 percent reduction!
I was touched by the wonderful response to the news of my
illness. Got over 200 get well messages, largely thanks to Michael
Farrells words [in Inside NCR for May 14]. Heard from
people I hadnt heard from in over 40 years. At least seven bishops. Loads
of NCR priests, brothers and elderly sisters who knew how to use
e-mail.
I heard lots of stories from other semicolons. What a
change! Years ago colon cancer wasnt even mentioned in mixed company, and
all churchmen died of cancer about where John Wayne used to get shot -- well
above the navel. Churches didnt even have bathrooms. One had to go
to Sister and get a key to the school. God knows how many souls were lost
to the church while they waited outside the school, hopping up and down on one
leg until Sister came.
Thanks for all the good wishes!
Immaculate Heart of Mary Sr. Ann E.
Chester, a founding leader of the House of Prayer movement, turns 98 years old
Aug. 13, and her friends are asking NCR readers to join the
celebration.
In 1968, Chester helped plan the first conference on House of
Prayer, a movement that sprung up as religious women found that their work in
socially oriented ministries was crowding out time for prayer and
contemplation. The movement encouraged the establishment of houses in each
order where community life was determined by the needs of prayer.
Chesters years of shaping that movement were chronicled in
her 1991 memoir, My Journey in the House of Prayer. The book marked the
beginning of her retirement at age 90, though she continued to respond to
requests for prayer ministry, retreat and workshop appearances.
Because of health problems, in 1996 she moved to the St. Mary
Health Care Center in Monroe, Mich. Her friends, family and former students
will be celebrating her 98th birthday there July 25. For readers who would like
to send Chester birthday greetings, mail them to St. Mary Health Care Center,
610 W. Elm Ave., Monroe MI 48162, and they will be presented to her at the
party. Please mark on the envelope, 98 B-day.
-- The editors
Michael Farrell is on vacation.
National Catholic Reporter, June 18,
1999
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