This is great news. First the translation, now this! The whole “Catholic, but…” crowd will be reeling upon hearing this news.
Danielle Bean of DanielleBean.com and Faith & Family Live fame is taking over leadership of the Catholic Digest. Catholic Digest is probably the largest, oldest, and best-known Catholic publication in the U.S. They’ve got hundreds of thousands of readers so it’s kind of a big deal.
But what makes it especially awesome is that this is the same publication that once featured the Catholic Mario “personally pro-life” Cuomo on the cover. Yup. This is the same publication that drooled all over its interview with un-Catholic Barack “it’s above my pay grade” Obama. (Do magazines drool?)
But now they put the muy Catholic Danielle “personally and publicly pro-life” Bean in charge. This is seriously great news.
Danielle has done great things over at Faith & Family Live. I read it and I’m a dude. CMR has every confidence in Danielle, because besides everything else, Danielle is Catholic, unadorned and unafraid.
And given that the publication’s readership probably skews towards seniors, hopefully Danielle will be moving the magazine out of the nursing home and into the nursery.
This is a seriously big deal in that a major “Catholic” publication is abandoning the tired old wishy washy “future Church” garbage and putting an authentically Catholic person in charge.
I suspect Danielle’s influence will be felt immediately at the Catholic Digest. This is great news for Catholic media. Now, if Pat and I could just take over the National Catholic Reporter we’d all be set.
November 29, 2011 at 3:10 pm
anon + nasty = deleted
November 29, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Wow that is great news. And, certainly there's nothing wrong with a magazine having many older subscribers, they also most definitely need faithful Catholic writing too. But, it's pretty likely that if it were truly faithful it would begin to attract younger readers. The way it is now it has no interest to me whatsoever–but, I am actually very interested in faithful Catholic reading material.
November 29, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Congrats to the magazine and to Danielle. This magazine was a fixture on my Grandmother's side table until the day she died (back in 1982). I loved reading it when I was a kid (didn't know any better) and tried to as an adult (some time at Franciscan U. made me know better). Looking forward to this revival and prayerfully hopeful that current subscribers won't know what is happening to them (getting more faithful material) until it is too late! 🙂
November 29, 2011 at 5:39 pm
I seriously thought you were kidding, until I actually read the details; wow, but this is phenomenal news!! Godspeed, Danielle! 🙂
November 29, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Will this mean the Digest will be under the control of the Legionaries, either overtly or de facto?
November 29, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Margaret– Danielle Bean hasn't worked for Circle Media or the Legionaries for quite some time. She's been working for Bayard for a while now.
November 29, 2011 at 9:50 pm
Are we 100% certain Bayard has no connection with RC/LC? Not to be paranoid or anything, but… 😉
November 29, 2011 at 10:23 pm
That's great news! I had a subscription for a while with Catholic Digest, and I didn't renew it because it was annoying and lame. I've been wanting a subscription to Faith & Family; I think it's time to get that AND Catholic Digest. Way to go, Danielle! 🙂
November 30, 2011 at 1:47 am
Bayard is a large French company that I am 100% certain has no LC ties.
November 30, 2011 at 1:01 pm
I had quit my subscription years ago when the liberal spin just got too much. Catholic Digest was the first Catholic publication I got a subscription to when I converted. Maybe now I will re-subscribe?
November 30, 2011 at 1:07 pm
As a mother of 11 children, I absolutely LOVE that a mom of 8 (or 9?) kids is heading a formerly liberal Catholic magazine. That has to have the pro-choice Catholics spitting soup in their tea-cups!!!
December 1, 2011 at 4:21 am
I recently subscribed to Catholic Digest through a Fund Raiser. Gosh, now I'm really excited!
December 8, 2011 at 12:19 pm
The loss of the moderate voice in the Catholic Digest is disheartening to those of us who understand that there has to be a space at the table for All of His people. I am sad that there continues to be rush to embrace the conservative agenda, that Catholics have turned on Catholics and the discussion around family, inclusion, and God's love has become so narrow that it is impossible to have a real discussion around faith and humanity.