Catholic publisher 'redefining strategy'
Another Catholic publishing house has announced changes in its business in response to the economic crisis, which has hit many already-struggling religious publishers especially hard. Earlier this month, NCR reported that Our Sunday Visitor had acquired Harcourt Religion Publishers. Now St. Anthony Messenger Press has announced that it is "redefining its strategy" and reducing staffing, including closing its Cincinnati telemarketing center, offering early retirement to some employees and abandoning its independent sales force. At least 40 positions, many of them part-time, will be eliminated.
"Across the country, we have witnessed the decline of secular and religious newspapers and the diversification of traditional publishers,'' Franciscan Father Dan Kroger, CEO and publisher, said in a statement. The traditional Catholic audience and subscriber base is shrinking, and younger readers are moving from print to electronic sources of information, he added.
Kroger said three factors are driving the changes:
- changes in religious affiliation and commitment among American Catholics,
Speaking last month at the CEHILA USA 2009 gathering at the University of New Mexico, Mario T. Garc'a, professor of Chicano studies and history at the University of California, Santa Barbara called veteran Catholic journalist Moises Sandoval, “one of the most important Latino Catholic writers in the United States during the last third of the twentieth century.”
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