For Florida’s Catholics, memory lane is a click away
If there is one aspect of my job I really enjoy, it is probably reviewing and posting photos that were published in the Florida Catholic over the past 70 years. It is a delightful daily sojourn down memory lane much like those moments when we take a gander through family photographs from the past.
We have posted photographs of people, places and events from around the state — 59 to be exact through the end of March. And each one is a moment in history, your history as Florida’s Catholics.
If you see yourself, a family member, friend, or your parish activity or event among the posted photos, we would like to hear from you if you would care to add your comments. From any gallery page, click on the commenting link and tell us a little more about yourself now and what was happening at the time the photograph was made.
As we continue throughout this year to post additional photos, be sure to check them out frequently — HERE,
Ed Foster Jr. | 03.30.09 | Return To Top | Florida Catholic Online Home Page
Six popes, a 400 year ‘moment’ and more photos
Posted: 01.09.09
As we were preparing for this year’s 70th anniversary celebration, Denise O’Toole Kelly’s inquisitive mind led her to research the Florida Catholic’s coverage of the popes over the years. In “When our pope speaks,” O’Toole Kelly looks at how the paper reported on issues that faced the six popes who have led the church since the inception of the Florida Catholic.
At the midway point of the Florida Catholic’s history, the city of St. Augustine was preparing to celebrate a 400–year milestone. “A Moment in Catholic History” recaps an article from Jan. 8, 1965, about the Diocese of St. Augustine’s preparation for that really big anniversary with a complete restoration of the cathedral.
And while you’re here, be sure to check out the “Photo Blog” which is updated daily with “new” old photos, many of which contain historical notes and links.
Ed Foster Jr. | 01.09.09 | Return To Top | Florida Catholic Online Home Page
‘70 Years’ of documenting Catholic culture
Posted: 01.02.09
As we begin this new year, we mark the 70th anniversary year of the Florida Catholic’s rich tradition of Catholic journalism in the state of Florida. The first edition of the paper was published Dec. 1, 1939.
For most of the paper’s history, the articles and photographs that have told the story of Florida’s Catholic heritage over the past 70 years have been relegated to the “morgue” – an antiquated term for a newspaper’s library – where they have gathered dust.
Our Web Special, “70 years,” provides the opportunity to dust off the files and conveniently share from these journals of Catholic culture. This Web Log is the starting point for information related to the yearlong celebration of the Florida Catholic’s first 70–years.
“A Moment in Catholic History” will present one post each week summarized from previously published articles that have chronicled Florida’s Catholic history. Over the next year, the “Photo Blog” will be updated daily, five days each week, with a “new” photograph from the archives.
Current staffers, under the direction of managing editor, Denise O’Toole Kelly, have toiled many hours researching, organizing, copying and preparing the information that will be included during 2009 in this Web Special.
Lynn Ramsey has compiled “The Florida Catholic Timeline” which documents some of the important dates in the paper’s history and Ana Rodriguez–Soto reports on the Florida Catholic’s early days in “Statewide paper began in Miami.” Jean Gonzalez takes a look at how front pages have kept us informed about issues and events that have helped shape our Catholic heritage in “Catholic news front and center,” and Linda Reeves writes about how the Florida Catholic has opened a window into rural communities in “Catholicism grows on water’s edges.”
In his editorial, “Newspaper celebrates 70 years,” associate publisher Christopher Gunty reflects on how the Florida Catholic has kept pace with technological changes since 1939 while maintaining its mission to “inform and educate the faithful in Florida with news that matters to Catholics.”
We hope you will join us in our yearlong celebration of the past 70 years of “your faith, your life and your community.”
Ed Foster Jr. | 01.02.09 | Return To Top | Florida Catholic Online Home Page
Statewide paper began in Miami
Posted: 01.02.08
MIAMI | For many Catholics in the Archdiocese of Miami, the Florida Catholic is the “new” newspaper – although it actually predates the one most of them remember.
The Voice, the newspaper of the archdiocese from 1959 to 1990, was only the second Catholic newspaper to be established in Florida. But the first was established in Miami as well.
In 1939, a visionary priest named Msgr. William Barry founded the Florida Catholic and became its first publisher and executive editor. It was the state’s first Catholic newspaper and it covered the entire Diocese of St. Augustine, which at the time encompassed nearly the whole state of Florida. Continued...
Ana Rodriguez–Soto | 01.02.09 | Return To Top | Florida Catholic Online Home Page
Catholicism grows on water’s edges
Posted: 01.02.08
LAKE OKEECHOBEE | Catholics on the edge of 730-square-mile Lake Okeechobee are somewhat separated from eastern parishes and parishioners, but outreach, mission work and money-raising have united the isolated faithful of Florida’s farmlands with other Catholics throughout the Diocese of Palm Beach.
Throughout its 70 years, the Florida Catholic has watched the towns of Belle Glade, Pahokee, Indiantown and Okeechobee and chronicled the history of St. Phillip Benizi, St. Mary, Holy Cross and Sacred Heart, opening a window into the rural communities where ministry to migrants is strong, and where the growth and development of Catholicism has steadily grown. Continued...
Linda Reeves | 01.02.09 | Return To Top | Florida Catholic Online Home Page
Catholic Paper is Means of Grace
Original Publication Date: 10.31.1958
In the current drive for subscriptions, The Florida Catholic has given much interesting information about the paper … its growth over the years, the increase in readers, the homes it has reached, the kind of news it has given, the tasks it set out to do, and so on. While thinking of this, it occurs to us that the important and the most interesting information by far is unobtainable. We will never know, for instance, how many who were lukewarm Catholics were helped out of their spiritual rut by reading in the Catholic paper what the heroic martyrs of today have suffered for the Church at the hands of the communists.
There is no way of calculating how many were given a new appreciation of the world–wide mission of the Church by reading in these pages the marvelous accounts of Catholicity at work in every nation under the sun. Continued...
01.02.09 | Return To Top | Florida Catholic Online Home Page