When the decision was made in September 2013 to cease publication of The Record newspaper, which had been in circulation for 140 years, many people were sad, some were disappointed and a smaller number were distressed. The decision was not easily or quickly taken, and it was a cause of regret to me that circumstances had, in my view, made such a decision inevitable.
Since that time, a great deal of energy, expertise and commitment has been invested in making The eRecord a worthy successor to the weekly newspaper. I am proud to acknowledge that the very same thing can now be said of our new publication, The Record Magazine, which will be an Archdiocesan bi-monthly publication, for the first edition of which I am writing these few words.
Catholicism, and Christianity generally, is a religion of the Word. The Scriptures we read in our liturgies, and hopefully also reflect on in our homes, are the inspired written Word of God. They witness above all to the Word of God, Jesus Christ, who reveals the face of God to us in a way we can understand. Pope Francis, in this Year of Mercy, has reminded us, in fact, that Jesus Himself is the face of the Father’s mercy. This Jesus, whom we are invited to continually place at the heart of our lives and our faith, makes this divine mercy clear to us in the pages of the Scriptures, and especially, of course, in the Gospels. There, we learn what God’s mercy looks like when it is expressed in a human way. There, we hear the call to live as disciples of Jesus, allowing the Father’s mercy to also shine on our faces so that the joy of the Gospel can bring hope to people’s lives.
My prayer is that, through the pages of our new Archdiocesan magazine, as well as in The eRecord, the same life-giving Word, the same joy of the Gospel, might be reflected in the stories, in the articles, in the photos and in all the other content which will appear in each edition.
As a Church, we have Good News to share: it is the Good News of God’s constant loving and compassionate presence in our lives. It is also the story of the ways in which we, as a community of disciples, in spite of the personal and collective failures which blight our lives, are able to be instruments of that divine love in our world.
As we continue our journey of becoming ever more a people walking together in the footsteps of the Good Shepherd, seeking to respond to the urgent call of the Church to find new ways of faithfully proclaiming the Gospel, my prayer is that The Record Magazine, together with The eRecord, will play an increasing role in helping us to share the Good News of Jesus among our own communities and with the wider society we seek to serve. May it function as an instrument of deepening communion among us so that we can be a credible witness to the Lord and His saving mercy.
+Archbishop Tim Costelloe
Archbishop of Perth
From page 3 and 4 from Issue 1: ‘The Year of Mercy: Seeking an Encounter with Christ’ of The Record Magazine