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"Dissenting" Catholic New Times Newspaper to Shut its Doors after nearly 30 Years

"further illustrates the literal bankruptcy of progressive thought and action"

By Hilary White
 
TORONTO, November 16, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic New Times (CNT), a news and opinion paper that has operated out of Toronto for three decades, is closing its doors after the next issue, due to insufficient funding. The New Times has been presenting an extreme left viewpoint for the length of its publishing run and has been banned in some Catholic diocese for some of its editorial positions opposing the Catholic teaching on sexual morality.
 
CNT has been the main organ of dissent in the Canadian Catholic establishment, notably on abortion, contraception and a female priesthood, since its inception. More recently the paper has endorsed homosexuality, saying in a February 2005 editorial, "…Same-sex, loving and committed relationships and the sexual expression thereof can be holy and may even be sacramental."
 
The same month, it was discovered that in one mid-size Ontario diocese, the Catholic New Times was a regular feature in at least 70% of parishes. One pastor in the St. Catherine's diocese, Fr. Paul MacDonald, described CNT as "programmatically dissenting."
 
"Its purpose is to undermine and cast aspersions on Catholic doctrines," said Fr. MacDonald. The paper was founded twenty-nine years ago by two of Canada's best-known dissenters from Catholic moral teaching, Sister Mary Jo Leddy and Fr. Gregory Baum.
 
Paul Tuns, 34, editor of the Interim, Canada's pro-life monthly newspaper, told LifeSiteNews.com, "We're not sorry to see it go because it gave a forum to those Catholic dissidents who undermined not only catholic teaching but specifically the work being done to protect the unborn."
 
Toronto's Kathy Shaidle, a former staff writer for CNT in the 1980s and early 1990s and a blogger, columnist and Catholic political commentator, commented on her site that CNT's demise is a result of the "bankruptcy" of CNT's leftist "progressive" viewpoint.
 
Shaidle writes, "The slow but sure demise of Catholic New Times further illustrates the literal bankruptcy of progressive thought and action. Here were people who couldn't keep their own financial house in order, presuming to pronounce on homelessness and poverty."
 
Shaidle wrote, "For people so committed to 'dialogue', the head honchos at CNT had no interest in listening to criticism of their editorial stances or business practices."
 
Shaidle, whose views have since about-faced on abortion, recounts that when she admitted to being "pro-choice" at a CNT board meeting every member of the board claimed to be pro-life. Afterwards, Shaidle recounts, six members of the board told her privately, "Kathy, I agree with you, but I didn't have the nerve to say so."
 
"Inspiring, huh? A paper that fancies itself on the vanguard of change, staffed by people too cowardly or lazy to voice their personal views among friends," Shaidle comments.
 
After the paper's endorsement last year of homosexual "marriage," some pastors and bishops began to curtail its dissemination. In April last year, Pembroke Bishop Richard Smith, president of the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops, directed his parishes to cease distributing the paper as did Bishop Nicola De Angelis' of Peterborough.
 
Read previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Anti-Catholic Paper Allowed in 70% of London, Ontario Parishes Opposes Bishop's Same-Sex Marriage Fight
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05022201.html

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