Author, Stephen King, wisely said “to write is human, to edit is divine.“
There’s no doubt that divine inspiration will play a big part in my new role as editor of The Catholic Weekly.
Taking on any editorial position is a big responsibility, but never more so then when it is at the helm of a much-loved newspaper with a history dating back to 1850. As your new editor I take this responsibility seriously, realising The Catholic Weekly is much more than just a newspaper, it is the glue that helps to hold our diverse spiritual community together.
Having written three novels (with another on the way) and working as a journalist for national and international publications for the past two decades, I come to the role as a storyteller.
I’ve been a storyteller for as long as I can remember. At Point Clare Primary School my best subject was called “written expression” and I’d fill my note book with vivid stories of killer robots and evil bush monsters.
I’d look forward to the fortnightly arrival of the lumbering white book-mobile from Gosford Library, packed with shelves of other people’s stories. It would park in the school playground, and I’d scramble aboard, eager to discover a world beyond my little village.
Many years later, I completed my master’s degree in English at Sydney University with a collection of poetry based around the stories of my father’s crumbling 1920s boat shed.
From time immemorial, from campfire to iPad, our culture has been built on our ability to tell each other stories. Our Holy Bible contains literally hundreds of stories that have shaped our civilisation, from the Creation and Fall to the Sermon on the Mount.
As children, our first encounter with God is usually through a Bible story, such as Noah and his ark, or Jonah and the whale.
Stories will continue to play a big part in The Catholic Weekly…the stories of our clergy, our parishes, our schools and our people. There will continue to be stories of our spiritual heroes, the unsung who do great things in the community, and even stories about those who seek to do us harm.
Ours is a broad church, and so the stories we tell must be similarly broad.
I take on this position at a time of great deception. The Catholic Weekly must shine as a beacon of truth in this era of “fake news,” of outright lies.
There are people who will tell us stories that a generation ago would not just be regarded as misinformation but dismissed as delusion, the product of a troubled mind.
The delusional have always been with us, but this is the first time we’ve been expected to believe their delusions or risk being “cancelled” if we don’t.
Finally, those regular readers of The Catholic Weekly—and aren’t we all?—will recognise my byline from a piece I wrote in a newspaper a couple of weeks back, about finding God through adversity.
You may recall that my beautiful daughter Daisy was diagnosed with a brain tumour six years ago. I wandered into Our Lady of the Sacred Heart—because it happened to be the nearest church to the Sydney Children’s Hospital—and prayed like I’ve never prayed before.
It was during this most difficult time of my entire life that I discovered the most important story of all…the story of God’s Grace.
What’s so powerful about this story is that it is eternal, a story you can trust, a constant.
God’s story is the very opposite of “fake news.”