NCR's goal is dialogue; rankling the Vatican a perk

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- When the National Catholic Reporter ran a story about priests in Africa molesting nuns, editor Tom Roberts wondered how the Vatican would react.

He didn't care too much. But he wondered.

"I can't think about what Rome is going to say," Roberts said. "The surprise this time was that the Vatican even confirmed that there was a problem."

If Roberts and NCR publisher Tom Fox did concern themselves with how Catholic leaders view the stories that make their newspaper, they likely would be publishing less.

NCR, a small, independent newsweekly published in Kansas City for more than three decades, prides itself on being "a place where the forbidden conversations can occur," says Fox, 57.

"We seek to be a haven for Catholics and to speak for the people who can't speak for themselves."

Critical of policies

NCR has had several stories critical of Vatican policies and of Catholic leaders -- lay and clergy. Fox said NCR broke the story about pedophilia among priests in the 1980s and has continued with stories on priests misusing parish funds and the Vatican's refusal to investigate those and other offenses.

There has also been extensive coverage on Central America and priests and nuns who defy orders from the Vatican to stop catering to homosexuals.

"It's a love-'em or hate-'em publication in some sense," says Karen Franz, president of the Long Island, N.Y.-based Catholic Press Association.

"It has its role," said Franz. "There always needs to be a maverick to challenge the institution. But usually you don't need too many or it becomes kind of rancorous."

The Vatican did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The newspaper's readership, which has held steady at about 50,000 for years, consists largely of lay church professionals, nuns and priests. But Roberts says there are also plenty of "bishops who wouldn't admit to reading it."

'Weighted with innuendo'

Bishop Joseph Galante of Dallas, chairman of the communications committee of the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops, is not one of those who secretly read NCR.

"I stopped reading it several years ago," Galante says. "I don't think muckraking has a place in any Catholic journalism. Because I think it can violate principles of charity and respect for human beings and can often be too heavily weighted with innuendo.

"It's important that the Catholic press tries to be a unifying element in the church."

Fox says dialogue is more important to him than unity.

The story about the priests abusing nuns ran last March and was based on five reports from religious organizations dating back to 1994. In that story, NCR alleged that unnamed priests -- mostly in Africa, where AIDS is a particular concern -- molested nuns because they were considered safe partners.

The Vatican issued a response about one week later saying "the problem is known, and is restricted to a geographically limited area."

Fox said the Vatican statement caught him off guard.

"But you give up trying to decipher what the Vatican is thinking after a while," he said.