May 2012 Print

Dear Angelus Press,

 

As a long-time subscriber to The Angelus, I’ve noticed that many of the articles have decreased in length. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I’ve found the new layout to be more reader-friendly than previous issues. I was just wondering if that’s a temporary change for the past two issues, or if it’s a new style you’ve adopted. Thanks for the great work!

Deborah

Maryland

 

Thank you for taking the time to send us a letter. We love hearing from our readers as it helps us to better tailor the magazine to our audience, while always maintaining the fight for Catholic Tradition.

In response to your specific question, “have we intentionally shortened the articles?” the answer is yes, and there are a couple of reasons for this.

First, it’s important to us that the Truth be accessible. One of the common responses we used to receive is that articles are simply too long and too in-depth for many of the fathers and mothers who make up a large segment of our audience. A shorter, more direct article that helps and educates our readers is far more important to us than a longer, more complex article that many don’t have the time to really sit down and digest.

The second reason we did this is to give you more content from different experts and thinkers. In the past, we may have dealt with one major subject from one great author. In that case, the article was closer to eight or nine pages. Now we’re able to tackle the same subject (like Vatican II) from three different authors all taking different vantage points (i.e. history, doctrine, biography). We think this gives a more balanced and complete understanding of the subject being discussed.

That being said, you may occasionally see articles that are longer in length when that becomes necessary. While we want to make our articles accessible to as many people as possible, we will never do that to the detriment of a full picture of the subject, or of the Truth. Our first priority and focus has been, is, and always will be the promotion of Catholic Tradition!


Angelus Press

Dear Angelus Press,

Recently I participated in a celebration of St. Patrick’s Feast at a home and I would like to comment on practicing the ideal you promoted in the latest issue of The Angelus. I had so much fun singing together with a chorus of happy men that I cannot resist quoting Hilaire Belloc on the subject:

“We will note as the years continue how, while all other pleasures lose their value and gradation, Song remains, until at last the notes of singing become like a sort of sacrament outside time, not subject to decay, but always nourishing us, for Song gives a permanent sense of futurity and a permanent sense of the presence of Divine things. Nor is there any pleasure which you will take away from middle age and leave it more lonely, than the pleasure of hearing song.”

G.K. Chesterton lamented the fact that families no longer get together in the evening to sing old ballads and folk songs. “One of the most marked instances of the decline of true popular sympathy is the gradual disappearance in our time of the habit of singing in chorus.” Happily this is no longer true at St. Marys.

I will also quote our dear Dr. John Senior (who, by the way, would have been pleased with this evening): “Civilization is the work of music... [We need to restore Catholic culture] in the home so that boys and girls will grow up better than we did, with songs in their hearts...”

I hope that the articles in this Angelus will help all of us to rediscover the feeling of satisfaction caused, as Hilaire Belloc says, by the fact that when we sing in chorus, “We are doing what the human race has done for thousands upon thousands of years. This is a matter of such moment that I am astonished people hear of it so little. Whatever is buried right into our blood from immemorial habit that we must be certain to do if we are to be fairly happy (of course no grown man or woman can really be very happy for long – but I mean reasonably happy), and, what is more important, decent and secure of our souls.”

May our parishes be places, as John Senior says, where “families are together at home in the evening and love will grow again without thinking about it, because they are moving in harmony together....

“Love only grows on the sweet sounds of music.”

 

Keep up the good work at the Angelus.

A teacher at St. Mary’s