The current situation in our country is enough to make a grown Catholic cry.
Cultural chaos. Secular aggression. Governmental overreach.
Don’t despair! Remember that, with God, all things are possible — including the restoration of an authentically Catholic culture in a morally adrift (and deeply divided) nation.
What’s more, you have a Catholic ally par excellence in the National Catholic Register.
And the Register has some outstanding friends of its own.
In fact, that’s the reason I’m writing you today.
You see, I’ve just received an extraordinary promise from one of our steadiest, most loyal donors.
That’s right: If you’ll donate $25 to the National Catholic Register, our matching donor will immediately double it to $50. Or, if you can give a little more, your $50 will instantly turn to $100 in our proverbial collection plate. And your $1,000 is $2,000 to us.
We're already partway to our goal of $120,000 — which will be a magnificent $240,000 with the matching funds.
My friend, that would be enough funding to help the National Catholic Register through one of the most difficult financial patches in its history.
Just one thing: The time window for this campaign is short. Please act now before the $120,000 matching-gift offer ends.
Now, some may ask: “Why does the Register need donations at all?”
Unfortunately, the answer is terrible in its simplicity. The Register is not immune to the same market forces that have driven some of America’s oldest and most esteemed print publications to the brink of survival. (Would that there were an inoculation for media companies striving to do the Lord’s work!) One leading news magazine no longer publishes a weekly print edition. Several august newspapers have shut down their presses for good. Others are sure to follow — unless they get some sort of government “bailout.”
(And by the way: Don’t let that scary scenario surprise you if it actually materializes. Under the current leadership in Washington, it’s altogether possible.)
But I digress.
The Register’s short-term goal is to make sure we don’t fall among the casualties as the media landscape continues to shake out its weakest (and most poorly prepared) players.
The fact is, we’ve always supplemented our subscription and advertising revenues with fundraising dollars. But now we’re looking for donations to do more than ever before to help us keep ahead of the business realities created by skyrocketing postage costs, ever-rising production prices and, especially, the industry-wide shift from print delivery to digital distribution.
Speaking of which: Watch for big, forward-looking improvements coming to our own website, NCRegister.com, along with adjustments to our print edition that will ensure its quality and sustainability — along with its famously uncompromising fidelity to the Pope and Magisterium — for years to come.
To make this important shift, we will need to raise $1.1 million by June 2010.
(For details on the changes, click
HERE.)
The future of the Register is bright indeed — in all its forms and formats. But we can’t go it alone. We’ll only be able to survive and thrive if our readers continue partnering with us so we can do the hard work the mainstream media either cannot or will not do.
And what work would that be? Getting the real story on the sanctity of life, the rightness of the traditional understanding of marriage, the wrongness of embryonic stem-cell research, the holiness of the Mystical Body of Christ (despite the sensationalized sins of some of its members) — and the myriad issues, topics and developments that matter to Catholics who don’t just privately profess their faith. They publicly live it out in order to bring the world to Christ and Christ into the world.
These “Register Catholics” — that would be you and masses of dynamic, highly engaged Catholics like you — know they need God’s truth, not someone else’s agenda-driven spin, in order to, as G.K. Chesterton put it, break the conventions and keep the Commandments.
My friend, we don’t have much time. The $120,000 matching-gift offer ends soon. Please say you’ll help now, while the need is great and the opportunity greater.
Please help the National Catholic Register inform Catholic minds, form Catholic consciences and show Catholics how to apply the mind of the Church to the issues of the day.
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