By Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB, Archdiocese of Perth
Since 1840, The Record has served the Catholic community in Western Australia extraordinarily well.
Week by week it has formed and informed the people of our archdiocese.
It has reported on national and international stories of vital interest to us as Catholics, while also helping us to understand what is happening in our own archdiocese, with all its challenges, its history, its heroism and its possibilities.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to those many dedicated laity and clergy who have, over so many years, guided The Record, ensuring that it appears week after week.
Now the time has come for The Record to take a new direction.
Changes in the way people access information, which have led to a decrease in subscriptions to The Record over an extended period of time, have prompted a review, not just of the newspaper itself but of the whole variety of ways in which our archdiocese seeks to share the message of the Gospel. We must be courageous in seeking new avenues for this vital work of evangelisation.
This has meant making difficult decisions about how we can best use our limited resources to achieve this aim.
The last edition of The Record in its present weekly format will be published for the weekend of July 26 and 27.
We will then have a short break from production of a month or so while special commemorative editions of The Record are prepared.
These will chronicle the wonderful work of all those who have worked for The Record over so many years. Following these special editions, which will undoubtedly become collectors’ items, The Record will appear in a new monthly magazine format.
This new publication, like its predecessor, will seek to be an instrument of formation and information for the Catholic people of our archdiocese.
Hopefully, it will also reach a wider audience and prove an attractive and effective way of spreading the Gospel.
With the change from a weekly newspaper to a monthly magazine, the archdiocese will be able to re-direct and devote its resources to improving our online presence.
We are working hard to make our archdiocesan website more attractive to a wider group of people, including the young, many of whom are far more likely to use the internet to access news and information generally than they are to read a weekly newspaper.
If our goal is to use the media to share the message of Jesus, we must try new methods and set out in new directions.
Change is sometimes difficult and there will be many people who will be sorry to see The Record in this present form no longer appear each week in our churches.
It is true, of course, that not everyone has access to the internet; nor is everyone comfortable with using this kind of technology.
For this reason, each week we will send an electronic newsletter to our parishes that will be printed in the parish and made available to those who would still like to receive a hard copy of the weekly news to take home with them.
I hope people will enjoy the special commemorative editions of The Record that will be published soon. I also hope that you will look forward to and embrace the new monthly magazine when it begins to appear later in the year.
I am confident that under the direction of our Media and Communications Manager, James Parker, and new Senior Communications Officer, Jamie O’Brien, who are both guiding the transition, the new publication will prove to be an invaluable resource for the deepening of our own love for the Lord and his Church, and a powerful way of spreading the Gospel message.
I am sure you will all join me in thanking all the dedicated staff who over so many years have worked for The Record.
I ask that you give your support to those who are now working so hard to help us with the transition to a new approach to spreading the Gospel through the written word.
And I invite you to ask the Lord to bless our efforts as we seek new ways to “proclaim the wonderful works of God who has called us out of darkness into his own wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).