Don’t let’s Lose our Loyalty

by Letters Editor · September 3, 2015

From Rosanne Shields, chairperson: The Southern Cross

As most South Africans have realised, the problems afflicting the SA Post Office are ongoing and having a disastrous effect on print media reliant on it for distribution.

This has certainly been the case for The Southern Cross. We are doing our best to get around this problem by using alternative services, and investigating others, but we are still to a large extent dependent on the Post Office.

What is extremely concerning is the trend in some parishes to simply cancel their long-standing order of the paper due to late arrival and the total lack of trust in the Post Office that we are all experiencing. This is very problematic at three levels.

Firstly, where is our loyalty to a paper that has been published every week since October 17, 1920, completely unsubsidised by the Church?

We survived the World War II and the years of apartheid. Are we going to let the SA Post Office cripple us now?

Secondly, there are many parts of the paper that do not date, such as the editorial, guests columns, the letters page, various features and advertisements. While not ideal, it is also not the end of the world if the newspaper is sold a week later at the church door.

Thirdly, unless by subscribing directly, there is no other way for parishioners to access the paper. They cannot go and buy it at a shop, leaving the parish with unsold copies the following week when it does arrive. By deciding to cancel a standing order, parishioners are being denied an important source of news and spiritual input. Are they even being consulted about this?

While the board of directors and staff of The Southern Cross try everything we can to solve distribution challenges, we appeal very strongly to the parishes, clergy and bishops of our territory not to cancel their orders but to work with us and promote us.

The alternative eventually is an empty porch and no national newspaper, the situation every other denomination in this country faces. The choice is ours as Catholics.