ONE ENVIES the Dutch for having a quality, serious Christian daily newspaper, Nederlands Dagblad (“Netherlands Daily”), even if it is Protestant-run and -oriented. A daily newspaper since 1967, ND currently has a circulation of 33,000. The circulation has been increasing in the past few years, reportedly among non-Christians who desire an alternative perspective from that of the mainstream newspapers. Could not the same be replicated in America, perhaps even on a Catholic basis?
(Assuming for the purposes of this discussion that Christian Scientists are Christians, we do have such a newspaper in the U.S., The Christian Science Monitor.
As of 2005, it had a circulation of 71,000, but an outsize on-line presence, with ” 1.7 million unique visitors per month to its web site, because the content is free — and good.”
See: http://tinyurl.com/3xwyfr
But of course, the Christian Scientists aren’t Christians.
I always found the Christian Science Monitor rather boring and uninspiring. Worse, it is an ugly and ungainly paper, and I find it difficult to bring myself to read a paper that is not well-designed.
But, while owned and operated under the auspices of the Christian Science Church, I believe most of its staff have nothing to do with the sect.
The Dutch also now have a very lively conservative weekly, Opinio:
http://www.opinio.nu/
Well then hop to it, boy! I look forward to reading “America Daily” edited by our own dear Cusack.
As a middle aged convert, I’m finding that there are wheels among wheels, even among Catholics. The closest thing online that sounds vaguely similar to your requirements is New Advent. Others may beg to differ.
It’s nice to hear something nice about the Netherlands for a change, but I’m afraid I’ll have to temper your enthousiasm a bit. The ‘Nederlands Dagblad’ is very outspoken in its anti-catholic sentiment, being the voice of the ultra-calvinistic ‘black-socks’ of the Dutch Bible-belt. The catholics have their weekly ‘Katholiek Nieuwsblad’ but have lost all their old Newspapers to the secularized mainstream. On the other hand: the great modernistic disease of the church started with us in the Netherlands, it appears to start its diminishing here to. The Church shows the first signs of recovery. Maybe the ‘Katholiek Nieuwsblad’ will become a daily newspaper after all…
Well, we always prefer to have any illusions we suffer smashed, so for that we must thank you, Friar Hugo.
I’m sorry about this one, but, as I said, there’s much to be thankfull for in the Netherlands to. Out of the blue, our cathedral is full of young people all of a sudden, every sunday. We had one vocation maybe every five years, now we have converts every easter and a lot of seminarians. It’s at its darkest just before dawn…
Well, you must know that the Nederlands Dagblad is actually a rather left-wing newspaper. Christian, indeed, but very similar in its political views to the “ChristenUnie”, an originally orthodox protestant political party that used to be fairly conservative but has moved tremendously to the left (open borders and on economics) in recent years and has been awarded for this behavior with a place in the government.
The real conservative Dutch Christian newspaper is the Reformatorisch Dagblad (www.refdag.nl) — this paper is more in tune with the SGP political party, a quite conservative party that traditionally holds about 2 out of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament (the ChristenUnie has 6).
Nederlands Dagblad sells about, Reformatorisch Dagblad double that number.
Actually, I don’t believe the Christian Science Monitor is run by “Christian Scientists.”
The Christian Science Monitor is owned by the Church of Christ, Scientist, headquartered in Boston, MA and has been since its foundation.