CHICAGO — The New Catholic Miscellany was honored with two national awards at the recent convention of the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada, held in Chicago May 26-28.
The Miscellany was recognized by The Society for the Propagation of the Faith in this year’s Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara Awards competition for world mission news coverage.
In the category of “mission series,” a series of columns by Msgr. J. Donald Gorski, a missionary from the Diocese of Charleston serving in Zorritos, Peru, received an honorable mention award. First place in the category went to The Long Island Catholic of Rockville Centre, N.Y., for a series on the missions in the Dominican Republic.
The Miscellany also received an honorable mention award for “Best Personality Profile” in the 17,000 to 40,000 circulation category in CPA competition. The recognition went to Paul A. Barra for an Oct. 8, 1998, article on Ernesto M. Torres. Torres is a Christ Our King parishioner who worked to ease the plight of the merchantman crew stranded in Charleston Harbor during the summer and fall of 1988. Their ship, the SS St. Thomas, was seized by U.S. marshals for nonpayment of port bills. The captain and crew had nothing to do with the business aspects of the freighter, but since they also had not been paid, they had no money and nowhere to go.
Judges said of the article, “In a well organized story of a humanitarian effort, the writer uses a news account to profile one man’s Christian response to a crisis.”
Other awards in the category went to diocesan papers from Ann Arbor, Mich.; Boston, Mass.; and Trenton, N.J.
More on the national Catholic Press Association will appear in the next issue of The Miscellany.