For immediate release • Download the full release HERE
We, the officers and leadership team members of the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests, on behalf of our members throughout the United States, have benefitted from the work of the USCCB Department of Communications.
We appreciate the current efforts to establish a cost-effective and stable force of professionals to preach the Gospel and to communicate the work of the Church through traditional and newly-emerging media.
We are writing to you to urge you to retain the services of Catholic News Service in New York and Washington. The communications reorganization plan rightly honors and preserves the journalistic work of the Rome Bureau, but the American bureaus also are critical to Catholics in the United States.
Losing domestic CNS means abandoning balanced reporting and distribution of domestic news, severing the links among our dioceses, various Catholic publications, social and communication media, and our faithful in the United States. We are gladdened by the continuation of CNS reporting from Rome, while deeply saddened by the loss of a similar voice from Washington and New York. Other well-funded, one-sided, and significantly ideological Catholic sources are able to promote their polarized and negative communications, resisting the direction forward established by Vatican II and dismissing, neglecting, or distorting the pastoral leadership of Pope Francis and his vision for our third millennium.
The shrinkage of CNS is a significant loss that will leave U.S. Catholics and citizens swimming in waves of misinformation, false theories, and tragic ecclesial and political partisanship. Our Church needs more balanced information, understanding, and unity in its communication, not less.
We pray that the direction taken by the USCCB in this matter will be guided by a synodal hearing of our voice and other voices in the Church in the United States, with ultimate resolution open and transparent.
Our faith is in the Catholic Church, not in the self-proclaimed Catholic News Agency that is the partisan voice of EWTN. We need Catholic News Service to continue to be the independent, non-partisan Catholic voice. Please do not let this voice be silenced. Save CNS.
(Signed)
Rev. Greg Barras, Chair of the Leadership Team
Association of U.S. Catholic Priests
gregmbarras@gmail.com
Rev. Stephen Newton, CSC, Executive Director
Association of U.S. Catholic Priests
auscpexdir@gmail.com
Rev. Bernard “Bob” Bonnot
AUSCP Member and Former Executive Director
auscpbonnot@gmail.com