Search
-
August 11, 2021The Sooner Catholic has been the standard bearer for Catholic journalism in western Oklahoma since 1974. It is however, the sixth iteration in Catholic publications.
The need for uniquely Catholic news was paramount from the beginning of the Church in Oklahoma. The primary missionaries who brought the faith – the Benedictines of Sacred Heart Abbey – presented The Indian Advocate in 1888 and published four times a year. From 1901-1910, it was a monthly. It ceased publication in 1910.
In 1915, the head of Saint Joseph’s Orphanage, Father John Kekeisen started The Orphan’s Record as a monthly magazine. While not the most appealing of titles, it synthesized local news and essays from national figures. The first editors were two future diocesan chancellors, Fathers McGuire and De Hasque. Later, another important personality in Oklahoma Church history, Monsignor John Dudek, an accomplished writer, edited it until it ceased operations in 1922, giving way to The Catholic Home.
Joseph Quinn was the first editor and moved his family first to Hartshorne (where the publication took place at the Carmelite printing facility) and then to Oklahoma City. The Catholic Home was a weekly and lasted two years before the new bishop, Francis Kelley, changed the name to the Southwest Courier in 1924.
Quinn set out to make the newspaper an exemplary publication. From all accounts, he succeeded. He penned a brilliant weekly column “Fore and Aft,” which was said to have been the most widely quoted of any Catholic publication in America for the time. His obituaries of deceased priests were far from the bare recitation of facts and gave priceless insights into the person and their mark in the world.
Joseph Quinn retired in 1960. Upon his death in 1963, The Oklahoma Courier, as it was now known, offered this glowing opinion: “Mr. Quinn has been the single layman who did the most for the Church and our diocese. … He dedicated his entire adult life, a life possessed of many talents, to the establishment of the Church in Oklahoma.”
The name change in 1960 to the Oklahoma Courier signaled a different era. Father John Joyce took the paper into a decidedly different direction. The tumultuous 1960s posed challenges for society and the Church. Some were not pleased with the stands taken by Father Joyce, especially his opposition to the Vietnam War although Bishop Reed had been one of the first bishops to decry the involvement of the United States in the war.
Since parishes had to pay for the Courier, many were furious with its content. Ironically, the Oklahoma Courier, which had been a champion of lay participation, was directed by the Pastoral Board (a board consisting of lay people and priests to work with the bishop on decisions affecting the diocese) to cease publication in 1969. Conservatives did not like the content and liberals objected to parishes paying for a publication many did not want.
Father Joyce started his own publication, The Oklahoma Observer, which he later sold to Frosty Troy. It became, primarily, a political opinion magazine that is still published today.
No diocesan publication existed until 1974 when Archbishop Quinn instructed Father David Monahan to start the Sooner Catholic, first as a bulletin then as a newspaper. Under Father Monahan’s direction, it again became a vibrant voice for the new archdiocese just recently created in February of 1973. Jeanne Devlin became editor in 1994, Ray Dyer in 2002 and Tina Korbe Dzurisin briefly in 2013.
In 2014, the current editor, Diane Clay, became editor of the Sooner Catholic. Using her 20 years of journalism experience, and with the design talent of Managing Editor Dana Attocknie, the newspaper has gained numerous local and national Catholic media awards.
Much of the success of the Sooner Catholic can be attributed to the journalists who came before who possessed a deep and abiding desire to help Catholicism grow and prosper in Oklahoma.
