Almost 58 years to the day from its initial publication, The Beacon, our diocesan newspaper, will transition from a print to an exclusively online edition. While many people have already transitioned to reading The Beacon online, hopefully, this move will benefit all our people and make the “good news” of the Paterson Diocese more widely available. As we transition, I thought I would offer a few historical and personal reflections.
The earliest stirrings of a “Catholic press” in the area occurred in 1902, when an energetic Patersonian, James A. Sweeney, began editing a “Catholic page” in the Sunday Chronicle. This weekly column covered news and activities of Catholic interest, chronicling Catholic Paterson during the Dean William McNulty era until the paper’s demise in 1928. In the same era in Trenton, Father William P. Cantwell began publishing The Monitor in September 1906. The personal effort of the pastor of Long Branch, The Monitor, was described as “the official Catholic weekly of New Jersey” and was endorsed by both the state’s bishops.
Meanwhile, in Newark, one of the last initiatives of Archbishop Thomas J. Walsh was to entrust Auxiliary Bishop James A. McNulty with the establishment of an archdiocesan newspaper. The Advocate (later The Catholic Advocate) debuted on Sept. 30, 1951. Two years later, Bishop McNulty was named the third Bishop of Paterson, and in October 1953, he designated The Advocate as the official newspaper of the Paterson Diocese as well. A series of priests served as the Paterson “editors” for The Advocate, Including Fathers Carl Wolsin, Frank Rodimer, and Paul Longua.
Despite evidence to the contrary, The Beacon was born at the beginning of March 1966. The moment that Auxiliary Bishop Lawrence B. Casey of Rochester said yes to the Apostolic Delegate’s invitation to become the fifth bishop of Paterson, we had a diocesan newspaper. Casey has been described as a frustrated country editor. Had he not become a priest, he might have wound up as the editor of an upstate-New York regional newspaper like the Elmira Star-Gazette or the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin. He was a wordsmith who loved writing and pursued it with disciplined precision. When he left Rochester for months to attend the Second Vatican Council in Rome, he would present his secretary with a dozen or more articles for the Sunday bulletin while abroad. Later, as bishop of Paterson, he would maintain two secretaries — one at the chancery office for business and a second at his residence, where he would routinely spend afternoons writing and answering correspondence. Later, Paulist Press would publish a collection of some of Casey’s best articles in a book called The Heart Remembers, Too (1967).
Upon becoming bishop, Casey’s first priority was a diocesan census to give him a clear picture of the diocese. The first and only diocesan census was taken on Nov. 13, 1966. On the bottom of the census form was a box to be checked off in response to the question, “Would you support a diocesan newspaper?” I have never seen a tally from that question, nor would it have made much difference. The moment Lawrence Casey became our bishop, a diocesan newspaper was a foregone conclusion. Just eight months after his installation as bishop, The Beacon made its appearance on Jan. 20, 1967, with a beautiful front-page photo of Alexander Hamilton’s statue overlooking the Great Falls of Paterson. Bishop Casey saw The Beacon as a unifying force in the diocese.
The Catholics of Morris and Sussex counties are largely ignorant of what is happening in the parishes of Passaic County — and vice versa. This is understandable in a way, I suppose, since our diocese is relatively new, and since there are many ties to link us to the archdiocese of Newark. But this diocese is able to stand on its own two feet and have an identity of its own.
In nearly 60 years. I would propose that The Beacon has lived up to Bishop Casey’s hopes for it. It has informed us, taught us, and helped us achieve our own identity. I have enjoyed working with The Beacon editors — Gerry Costello, Tim Manning, Vic Winkler, Rich Sokerka, and Jai Agnish — as well as many other staff members. When I was writing the diocesan history in 1987, Tim Manning and his assistant Nancy McLaughlin were unflagging in their help with the practicalities of publishing. Later, Vic Winkler encouraged me to start writing a series of occasional church history articles. More recently, Jai Agnish has helped Father Paul Manning and me develop our podcast, “Coffee with Kupke.”
But, there was one particular moment — a profound and wildly humorous tribute to Divine Providence — when The Beacon proved to be a lifesaver. The year was 1992, and Americans were celebrating the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyages. For Catholics, it was hailed as the 500th anniversary of the Evangelization of the Americas. I was busy that year working full-time on my doctoral dissertation at The Catholic University of America. I was writing on the New Jersey layman, James J. Norris, the only layman to have participated in the debates at the Second Vatican Council. Despite this focus, I was also responsible for the diocesan participation in the Columbian observances. As such, I had agreed to edit a year-long series of articles on evangelization for The Beacon. The series ran in a four-part cycle: a theological piece, followed by a piece on various practical aspects of evangelization, followed by a local story on evangelization, followed by a historical piece. Father Paul Manning wrote all the theological reflections on Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi. Looking back on it now, it is probably how Father Paul started to wind up in his present position as Diocesan Vicar for Evangelization. I lined up a regiment of locals to help write the second and third pieces, and I wrote the historical ones.
Meanwhile, back at my dissertation, I had hit a brick wall. I had James Norris’ life pretty well researched — except for the two years he spent in the U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II. I could not find any reference or person who could detail that period. While pondering this, I got a call from The Beacon that one of the contributors to my evangelization series had failed to produce. When I contacted her, she just said she had forgotten and that there was no way she could produce something in such a short time. Faced with this hole in my series, I jumped in and, in one night, wrote a piece on the only thing I was thinking about then — James Norris – as a model of evangelization at Vatican II.
A week later, I received a phone call from a parishioner at Christ the King Parish in New Vernon. It seems that she had been out walking her dog and using The Beacon as a “pooper-scooper.” The dog was not cooperative, so she found herself looking at the newspaper, which was opened to the page with my column. In reading the article, she realized with shock that I was writing about her father’s best friend from World War II, the man who had converted him to Catholicism on shipboard and who had served as her godfather. The next week, her father flew in from Pebble Beach, Calif., spent a delightful day with me, and filled in more wonderful details of Norris’ missing two years than I could ever have imagined.
Thank you to The Beacon for informing us, teaching us, unifying us . . . and being a lifesaver for me. May you have many more good years online.
Raymond J. Kupke
December 2024
Msgr. Raymond Kupke is the archivist for The Diocese of Paterson and a historian who teaches at Seton Hall University. He’s also the pastor of St. Anthony in Hawthorne.
