You can now get 50 years of the South Texas Catholic

My first column in the South Texas Catholic appeared nearly 20 years before Bishop Michael Mulvey asked me to take over the editor’s desk at the newspaper. This and other interesting personal facts I uncovered with our newest addition to the publication.

A couple of years ago, the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation provided the South Texas Catholic a grant for, among other things, electronically archiving the newspaper’s 50 years of stories. These electronic files were then converted to searchable files and are now available to the public on the World Wide Web. Anyone of our readers, or anyone in the world for that matter, can now search through our newspaper’s archives from the comfort of their home. And if they do not have a computer they can do it at a nearby library or at our office where we have set-up a dedicated kiosk for searching the archives.

I took a ride on the kiosk and that is how I found out that on Feb. 8, 1991, 20 years before I came to work here, a column appeared with my byline. “Decision must be viewed in a wider context”, reads the headline. It was a reprinted column from the secular newspaper—the Duval County Picture—I was publishing at that time in San Diego.  The piece looked at a controversy involving Bishop Rene Gracida’s dismissal of Father Bill Elliott, pastor at Holy Family Parish in Corpus Christi. 

The substance of the column is not important to this discussion, but it is available on our archives for anyone who wishes to read it. In addition to this nugget, my search through the archives also led me to a photo of Sister Monica with the Sisters of Divine Providence, who is the namesake of our oldest daughter. I found a story about our second daughter being named outstanding Altar Server at St. Francis de Paula in San Diego and a photo of our son gleaning through a list of winners of the Catholic UIL competition at St. Joseph School in Alice. Great memories!

Feel free to look for your memories at www.southtexascatholic.com/archives or drop by our office and use our dedicated kiosk. Oh, one other thing. The grant also allowed us to digitize the copies in our possession of The Parish Post, a newspaper that covered local Catholic news before the official diocesan newspaper began publication. It is also available for searching at the link provided above.

We would be remiss if we did not extend to the Kenedy Memorial Foundation our most sincere appreciation for their generosity in making this available to our readers. This is but a small part of the great work they do for our diocese year in and year out. Thank you!

Another new feature of the South Texas Catholic magazine is found in the “Our Faith” section (page 34). This month we introduce articles by pastors in our diocese. This may be in the form of a homily, letter or bulletin announcement. We hope to have a column from a different pastor each week. We will scavenge parish websites and bulletins for pearls of wisdom, and we encourage pastors and parish secretaries to make us aware of something they feel is worthy of inclusion in this column.

Father Paul Hesse, pastor of St. Pius X Parish in Corpus Christi, kicks off this new feature with a letter he wrote to parishioners in the parish bulletin, entitled “A Christian finds God to be a blessing.”  It is a column about his efforts to gain control of his weight; a challenge many of us do battle with often. Father Hesse writes “I certainly have to credit God for my recent discipline in this regard. I could not do this without prayer.” 

“Whenever anyone of us is overwhelmed by life, we will certainly not find help by turning away from faith,” Father Hesse writes. “It is precisely when we submit ourselves to Jesus and take his yoke upon our shoulders that we find freedom and life. At the outset, it may seem like a burden to submit ourselves to Jesus, but in the end, it will empower us to greater resilience and deeper rest.”

Look for more such pearls of wisdom from other pastors in the coming months.

While the generosity of the Kenedy Memorial Foundation and literary contributions from pastors such as Father Hesse are vital to our mission, so are the contributions of our readers. Please do not hesitate in writing or calling us with story ideas from your parish or ministry. And please consider making a financial donation by using the form found in the inside back cover of this magazine.

One final thought. As is our practice, we are publishing a combined issue for August and September, so do not look for the magazine in your mail box in September. We will be back in October. 

¡Mil gracias!