New format for next issue

Next month, the Dakota Catholic Action newspaper will come to you via a new format—a magazine.

While it’s a major format change, you’ll still get the same local Catholic news and feature articles about diocesan events and faith-filled parishioners—just in a different layout. This shift in format from newsprint to magazine style will have its benefits. The number one benefit is quality. The Dakota Catholic Action has been printed on newsprint since its inception in 1941. Newsprint has many challenges including the inability to offer crisp, clear photos. The newsprint presses are also becoming extinct as secular newspapers transition to more online content and consolidated press locations in the interest of revenue savings.

Your diocesan newspaper has remained extremely consistent in the last 81 years since it was created on May 1, 1941, by Bishop Vincent Ryan. In his inaugural article, the bishop outlined his reasons for sponsoring a paper: “To carry on his work effectively, a bishop needs a paper…In a successful parish we find the members bound together by the bond of love and charity…. But we should not confine our interest merely to our parish. We should be interested in our diocese and the whole Church…The purpose of this paper will be to unite all the Catholics in the diocese in one program of Catholic Action to promote the welfare of each individual parish and the welfare of the whole diocese.”

Through the succession of bishops, the Dakota Catholic Action has kept true to Bishop Ryan’s intentions as the primary way the chief shepherd communicates to the faithful. That consistency has been maintained for the last eight decades while evolving to communicate as effectively as possible.

The advent of full-color printing capabilities was a major change in 2002. The last time the Dakota Catholic Action underwent a design update was 2014 switching to the general “look” you’re holding right now as you read this article.

As we move forward with the new magazine format beginning next month, we hope you’ll be pleased with the quality leap forward and continue to enjoy reading the news from your diocese. We’ll continue to promote the welfare of the whole diocese as Bishop Ryan wanted, but through a better-quality medium.

—Sonia Mullally, DCA Editor