A toast to Maryknoll magazine

Long before the communications age and digital wizardry, well before terms like "developing world" and "Third World debt" were part of the common vocabulary, Catholics were learning about exotic lands and heroic missionaries through a small-format magazine, the cover of which bore, in blocky letters, the word "Maryknoll."

Maryknoll magazine, which has remained a staple of Maryknoll, the U.S.-based Catholic missionary movement, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

Its longevity, in some ways, is owing to the same spirit of persistence and adaptability that has marked the components of the movement: the Maryknoll Society, made up of priests and brothers; the Maryknoll Congregation of Sisters; Maryknoll Lay Missioners; and Maryknoll Affiliates.

It is also owing to another important element for any publication: Maryknoll, with missioners throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, has always had interesting stories to report.

If Maryknoll magazine, with its examination of issues of justice and peace in places most Americans will never visit and may not be able to find on a map, is like no other in the world of U.S. Catholicism, so is the order itself. Maryknoll is uniquely American, begun at the start of the 20th century specifically to send missioners overseas. They currently serve in 39 countries worldwide and increasingly their presence is made up of laypeople, single, married and some with families.

The birth of the magazine in 1907, known at the time as the The Field Afar, actually predated the birth of the society by several years. According to the society, missioners around the world would send letters and photographs by mail to Fr. James Anthony Walsh in Boston for publication in The Field Afar. A Walsh line that explains his early fascination with publishing and the longevity of the current magazine graces the start of the 100th anniversary issue: "Every great idea needs a literature."

Fr. Walsh eventually became Bishop Walsh and founder of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, since known as Maryknoll.

According to editor Frank Maurovich, the magazine continues to focus on the work missioners do "mainly with the poor and suffering. They imitate Jesus in the Gospels by promoting and defending the human rights of poor families to decent housing, health care and education. The missioners report that the resilience, courage and even the joy they find in the poor in the face of extreme conditions have a profound impact on them."

While there's no "price" for the magazine--it is distributed to nearly 200,000 regular supporters of the society--this is not the normal literature of fundraising. Indeed, the magazine has gone through more than a few cycles in which articles that question, for instance, U.S. militarism or U.S. policies in Latin America have caused many people to denounce it and end their support for the society.

Ultimately, however, the magazine is a vehicle of hope. "Our goal remains to inform, inspire and involve readers in overseas mission," writes publisher Fr. Joseph Veneroso in the centennial issue. He even coined a word for the occasion--"Evanjournalism." A good evanjournalist, writes Veneroso, "writes about ways the Gospel of Jesus changes people's lives. His written words continue to spread the word of God around the world 20 centuries after his death."

We wish Maryknoll, and its Spanish-language sister publication, Revista Maryknoll, many more centuries of spreading the word.

COPYRIGHT 2007 National Catholic Reporter
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