Mission and Values

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NCR is a 501(C)3 organization.
Our tax exempt number is: 43 - 0815211

Established in 1964, National Catholic Reporter (NCR) began as a newspaper and is now a print and web news source that stands as one of the few, if not the only truly independent, journalistic outlet for Catholics and others who struggle with the complex moral and societal issues of the day. Approximately 23% of the U.S. population identifies itself as Catholic, the largest religious body in this country, and NCR is the only significant alternative Catholic voice that provides avenues for expression of diverse perspectives, promoting tolerance and respect for differing ideas.

NCR is a religious news source with worldly interests; and though a large amount of its reporting deals with issues of the Catholic Church, an equal amount of its coverage is a marriage of the religious, political and social forces shaping public policies and institutions. We are concerned for all people and we are committed to shaping a world that recognizes the dignity of every human being, regardless of religious belief, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or other characteristic. Throughout our history, we have been a voice for the disadvantaged and the marginalized, and we have told the stories of injustice that others simply will not print.

Mission Statement:
The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company seeks to inform and inspire a just and peaceful world, serving as a platform for discussions of church, society and global community. As a company, we are committed in our publishing efforts to the Roman Catholic tradition and people. We identify with those trying to live by Christ’s life-affirming teachings of justice and compassion.

Having developed through the inspiration of the Second Vatican Council, our spirit is independent, our management lay, our vision ecumenical. We attempt to contribute to the Catholic conversation by supporting freedom, honesty, openness and shared responsibility within the NCR reader community, the communities in which we live, and in the church, and by promoting the vision of a pilgrim church intimately linked with humanity and its history. We realize our unique responsibilities as North American Catholic publishers, both in our own society and in the worldwide faith community.

From these perspectives, our biweekly newspaper reports and comments on the church in the modern world. Both our print and Web publishing efforts foster an active, engaged spirituality in support of human dignity, social justice, environmental responsibility and world peace. As we dialogue within the Catholic community and with those beyond, we balance integrity and sensitivity, keeping an editorial vision that is both prophetic and reconciling — discerning the work of God’s Spirit and also aware of human limitations.

We try, in all our management and publishing decisions, to evaluate carefully the needs of the faith community we serve and to respond effectively to those needs.

National Catholic Reporter has been the recipient for the last nine consecutive years of the highest award for journalism from the Catholic Press Association.

NCR publicly promotes the following values:
• Justice – bringing light to darkness, hope to the marginalized of the world
• Renewal – operating out of the spirit of the Second Vatican Council
• Human Dignity – respect and honor for all members of the human family
• Compassion – making forgiveness and love foundational in our actions
• Inclusiveness – embracing the global family, its rich diversity and the sacredness of all creation
• Excellence – striving to achieve the highest quality of journalism

TV journalist and author, Bill Moyers, wrote the following on the occasion of NCR’s 40th anniversary in 2004:
In Tom Stoppard’s play “Night and Day” one of the characters—a news photographer—says, “People do terrible things to each other, but it’s worse in places where everybody is kept in the dark.” Because a closed society cannot be a free society, the quality of journalism and the quality of democracy are inextricably bound. I believe this to be so in matters of religion, too; it is impossible for me to imagine that our Creator would find a closed mind compatible with seeking truth that sets us free.

Without the faculty of self-correction all political and religious institutions, given time, go bad. For decades now the National Catholic Reporter has been courageously committed to independent journalism whose only aim is real news—the news we need to keep our freedom. In a time when a handful of megamedia conglomerates control more and more of what we read, see and hear, NCR remains faithful to journalism as a moral calling, obliged to get as close a possible to the verifiable truth. I would, as a citizen, be poorer without it; so would American democracy.

NCR can and has exercised decisive influence on the 67 million Catholics in this country and it can help shape its democratic institutions. Religion should expand the dialogue, not contract it.