Forging a Catholic Link

The Catholic Link, published every week by the Redemptorists, is a popular newsletter in many parishes in South Africa, with its valued spiritual items and an opportunity for the parish to publish its own content. Fr Sean Wales CSsR explains the history of the Catholic Link and how it is produced today.

Looking back to the first efforts of the Redemptorists at Catholic publishing in South Africa, I discovered that 50 years have passed since our first venture in that direction. Our founder, St Alphonsus Liguori, was a prolific writer and the tradition of “the apostolate of the pen” has always had an honoured place in our history.

In 1975 a “mission press” was set up in our parish in Rustenburg and its first publication was a popular Setswana prayer book, A Re Rapeleng (Let us Pray).

The initiative of producing a weekly Sunday bulletin had been a huge success in the London Redemptorist Province, and it inspired a former provincial to attempt the same ministry in South Africa. It was decided to use the British bulletins in South Africa.

These first bulletins were reproductions which were printed, counted, packed and dispatched in Rustenburg. This was a mammoth undertaking for the priest-editor and two workers. The project was discontinued when the editor was transferred to Zimbabwe, and his departure was followed by many technical problems with postal deliveries and breakdowns.

Founding of the Link

When I was appointed to the Parish Mission team in the early 1990s, I felt that our mission-preaching could do with the support of some follow-up in the form of short pamphlets or books on the various themes of the sermons. Soon this initiative became Redemptorist Pastoral Publications which is still publishing books and pamphlets of a pastoral nature.

Under the inspiration of the late Fr Martin Gay CSsR, we launched our weekly parish bulletin with the title of “Catholic Link”. The very first Catholic Link was published to coincide with the first Sunday in Advent 1993. The Catholic Link has been published every week since then, even during Covid, when our churches were closed. Initially the Links were written by local Redemptorists, and the pool of contributors has grown over the years.

Those first Catholic Links consisted of an A4 page. There was a leading article on some aspect of our Catholic faith. Another permanent feature was “Sunday Mass”, giving the antiphons, Scripture references and responsorial Psalm in full for the Sunday in question. There was “Scripture Prayer Through the Week” section, to encourage praying the Scriptures. Sometimes individual prayers were included as well as suggestions of appropriate responses to the Bible readings of the Sunday. There was always some illustration relevant to the lead article.

The reverse side (verso) of the Catholic Link was blank to allow parishes to advertise their own activities. Circulation of the Link rose steadily till we were dispatching up to 60000 per week. Inevitably, with the closing of churches during the pandemic, that circulation number dropped dramatically. But we survived without missing a single week. Recovery has been slow; the current distribution figures are around 26000 per week.

Refreshing the look

Every now and then we have “refreshed” the look of the Catholic Link. A first major change was to print it in full colour in 2005; this greatly improved the illustrations. Then we moved from portrait to landscape format, thus allowing the main feature to expand to roughly 500 words.

The introduction of “Live the Word” feature included not only the references for each day’s Mass but also a short “Thought for the Day”, which many have appreciated. Underneath the Sunday Mass texts we reserved a small box for information or book reviews and for advertising The Southern Cross.

While the Catholic Link provides useful information, its main purpose is to inspire parishioners in their daily lives. As part of a worldwide Church, we treasure the role our faith plays in daily life and the continuity we have inherited. Most of all, we long for a deeper and more engaging encounter with our faith.

The main articles in the Catholic Link provide a platform to address some of these deeper issues. We try to maximise the shorter liturgical seasons — Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. So we publish short series preparing for and celebrating these liturgical seasons.

The much longer Ordinary Time from Pentecost to Advent (we call it the “green season”) offers the chance to expand on a particular theme pertinent to the life of the Church. Some of these themes are biblical, some catechetical, some sacramental in kind.

Over the years we have run series on papal encyclicals: in 2021 it was “Brothers and Sisters All”, based on Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratteli Tutti. In 2017 it was “The Joy of Love”, based on his document Amoris Laetitia, and in 2014, “The Joy of the Gospel”, based on Evangelii Gaudium.

For two years running we had “Open your Bible”, the first year on the Old Testament and the second the New Testament.  Of course, the Year of Mercy in 2016 provided plenty of opportunity to celebrate that Jubilee.

From Links to books

One good effect of these themed series is that we get requests to produce the main articles in pamphlet form. This gives us the opportunity to expand on the topics concerned and has led to several popular pamphlets and succinct books published by Redemptorist Pastoral Publications. For example, having treated the subject of healing, we subsequently produced three separate publications: Why Are You Weeping?, Keep It Light, and most recently, Come to Me.

Articles on prayer have led to others books: Learn to Pray, Praying to God as a Friend, An Alphabet of Prayer, and The Prayer Book of Jesus. This is a trend which will continue. Having already treated aspects of Catholic Social Teaching, and with a Leonine pope, I can expect that this vital theme will continue to occupy us.

Visit www.rpp.org.za to browse and order the books published by Redemptorist Pastoral Publications.

Producing the Link

The process by which the Catholic Link is produced is monitored by the editor of Redemptorist Pastoral Publication, Fr Larry Kaufmann, our former provincial superior. He consults about the themes for the main articles and produces a plan for the year. He commissions the articles, usually giving each contributor responsibility for one month of Links. Sometimes a single contributor may have a few months in the course of a year.

When the articles are submitted, they are assessed by the editor and sent for layout and design. The proofs are then sent to a small team of proofreaders before the go-ahead is given, and the material is sent to the printers.

The finished product is sent to our office in Merrivale, KwaZulu-Natal, from which orders are couriered to parishes across the country. Everything is organised in such a way that the Catholic Links arrive in a parish one month before the relevant month for distribution, giving the parish ample time to print its content on the blank inner pages.

Inevitably, a word about costs. The cost to a parish for the Catholic Link is R1,10 per copy. How this compares to “do-it-yourself” bulletins varies wildly from place to place and the numbers involved. The bottom line is that the Catholic Link comes with content and knowledge, printed on paper and requiring distribution — all of which naturally has to be paid for.

For many parishioners, the Catholic Link is indeed the only link to any Catholic reading.

For further information or for parishes to place an order, contact Janet Cholwill at Redemptorist Pastoral Publications between 8:30 and 13:00 on Tuesday to Friday at 082 667-3857 or email
Published in the August 2025 issue of the Southern Cross magazine