You’re often credited as the founder of FAITH Magazine. What was your role in bringing the magazine to fruition?
I was the founding editor of FAITH Magazine, but I can’t take credit for starting FAITH Magazine. I believe God used me to put the pieces together to bring it to fruition, but Bishop Mengeling was the one who saw a need that was ultimately filled by FAITH.
Back in 1998, he asked me to research the idea of starting a diocesan newspaper for the Diocese of Lansing to replace the Catholic Times. He figured that, since I had been writing a newspaper column about campus ministry for Catholic Times for some 20 years, I was a newspaper guy! Of course, it’s a long way from writing a column to actually starting up a newspaper.
I accepted the assignment from the bishop and began to do the research. Immediately, it was clear to me that a newspaper was the wrong direction. Catholic newspapers – and newspapers generally – already were losing ground 10 years ago. There was no future in it. And it would take a full staff and a very large budget to serve the 80,000 residents of the diocese. Most importantly, a newspaper can only present facts, information and data.
On the other hand, a four-color magazine could be produced 10 times per year at half the cost – and could reach those same 80,000 people with formation, inspiration and evangelization. That’s a very different mission from a newspaper!
Once I presented Bishop Mengeling with the concept for FAITH Magazine, there was no question that it was the tool we needed to reach God’s people. From there, it was an obvious progression to use the Internet to offer the magazine’s content more broadly through FAITHmag.com.
Was your personal philosophy as a priest reflected in the magazine’s development?
Throughout my priesthood and in all of my writing and preaching, I have used ordinary language for ordinary people, and that is something we committed to do in FAITH Magazine as well. I remember in high school algebra, my teacher, Catherine Hill, repeatedly urged us to “reduce and simplify.” That has been a motto for me ever since!
FAITH Magazine shows us in a simple way how ordinary people deal with pain, suffering, loss, aging, parenting, divorce, alcoholism, drug addiction, death – the whole spectrum of life experiences. But it shows us – it doesn’t tell us. FAITH Magazine was meant to be experiential, not didactic. In that way, it uses icons to help us experience the love of Christ – in the same way the church has used icons throughout her history.
Explain that to me – how is FAITH Magazine an icon. You mean, like artwork and statuary?
Exactly. One of the objectives of FAITH Magazine is to use images – visual pictures as well as images created in our minds through words – to communicate the Gospel. This is a part of our ancient tradition. The people of God are familiar with using images to portray faith. So the magazine and the web site are modern day icons – images – used to tell the faith stories of ordinary people.
There is a good reason why the church uses icons. Icons are images into which our imaginations may enter – windows, if you will. We go through these windows to contact and receive the presence of God. In that way, all human beings are icons – we are mysteries – and we are windows through which others can experience God’s powerful love.
Do you have a favorite faith story from the first 10 years of FAITH Magazine? Do any particular stories stand out in your memory?
No one story emerges in my memory because they cannot be compared to one another. Each person’s faith story is as important as another’s because in God’s eyes, each of us is equally important. The street sweeper and the exalted cardinal are equally loved and cherished in the eyes of God, and their unique stories are equally valid as representations of a faith journey.
So no, I don’t have a favorite. They have all inspired me.
Why do you think the format for FAITH Magazine works so well?
It works because through the stories in the magazine, we can see that people cope better with life’s struggles when they have faith to carry them through. I have always thought the Catholic Church has the answers that are really beneficial because we have the humanity of Jesus Christ to lead us. In his humanity, he offers insights and understanding about life that we can’t get anywhere else. So the format of both FAITH Magazine and FAITHmag.com – telling those personal human stories – portrays our ordinary faith journeys in ways that truly demonstrate the presence of Christ in our everyday lives.
Did you ever feel that God had called you to a really difficult task when you were asked to launch such an ambitious evangelization project?
Never. If the thing you are doing is God’s project, it’s not difficult.
I always figured it this way – if God sent his only Son into the world to suffer, die and rise again, he must have had something really important to say to us. I wanted to be a part of that – that’s why I became a priest.
In any case, I never felt the magazine was a project that happen to come to me through the bishop, but rather that it was something God planned for me to do. It helps me to participate in answering life’s most fundamental question: What is life about?
Have FAITH Magazine and FAITHmag.com reached their potential?
The potential of FAITH Magazine and the Web site cannot be measured in circulation numbers or in hits on the Internet. Even though we are pretty media savvy as a diocese, we know that these things are only tools do evangelize, and our efforts to bring the Gospel to the people of God can be measured by God alone.
If people become Catholic or if others come back to the faith because of something they have read or seen in FAITH Magazine, that is a measure of our full potential.
We have the same problem that God has! He offers and wants us to respond, but we are responsible for responding. That’s all we can do with FAITH Magazine – offer Jesus Christ to God’s people through those unique faith journeys and hope that they will respond.
I’m not at all curious about our so-called success. We are sowers of seeds. Some will be too busy, or too corrupt, or too degraded to take root, and others will be ready and waiting to blossom because of the message they receive.
Sometimes it takes a lot of pain for God to get into a human heart. He allows life to break our hearts open so that he can come in. Faith tells stories of heartbreak and of God’s healing love. So in that sense, our potential is unlimited, isn’t it?
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