The play “Mass Appeal” made its Broadway debut in 1981. Playwright Bill Davis mined the upheaval in the Catholic Church 15 years after the Second Vatican Council by pitting a liberal deacon against an old-fashioned pastor. At one point, the deacon announces the purpose of the church “is to become obsolete,” wording which startled me while I was in seminary.
Yet it was actually my seminary theology that established the startling premise that the church is not the end in itself. Rather, it’s an institution at the service of our faith — and faith may, over time, pull us in unexpected directions that make a path we’ve followed for years “obsolete.” I never expected the day would come when some people think printed newspapers have become “obsolete.
” To its last day of publication, I think of The Journal as our treasured community voice doing what the Fourth Estate is supposed to do: speaking truth to power, holding elected leaders to a high standard of justice, and helping the average citizen understand and navigate our little world of Hudson County. I’ve received many calls, emails and letters from readers expressing their sadness over the demise of this newspaper. People have stopped me on the street, in the store, after Mass and even at a wake — which is what we’re all going through here.
Even though there are multiple sources of news online, on cable and on television, The Jersey Journal was “our” pride. Bayonne’s Mary Kennelly wrote me to rec.
