A Note from Robert Royal

Dear Friends,

I want to thank all of you who responded to our appeal yesterday. We’re within a few thousand dollars of our end-of-year goals. Like me, many of you seem to wait until the very end of the year to make your final charitable donations. In any case, we’re very close now, but we need a couple of dozen $50, $100, or larger contributions – today – to bring 2015 to a good end.

Not many of us, I suspect, will regret the passing of 2015 or will look back to it fondly. It’s been a year of great turmoil in the Church and the world. And there seem to be few institutions or people we can count on any longer.

I continue to believe – because I hear it from many of you – that The Catholic Thing is an exception. For TCT, 2015 was a banner year. We reached more readers than ever before, and did what I think was as good coverage as you are likely to find anywhere on events like Pope Francis’ trip to Cuba and America, and the 2015 Synod on the Family – both of which often called for some painfully candid commentary.

In 2016 we’re facing a crucial presidential election in America. America is not the whole world, to be sure. And it’s certainly not the Church. But I travel a lot in parts foreign, and what happens here profoundly affects what happens elsewhere, even in places like Rome. Which is why it’s important that there be strong Catholic voices in this country to defend the defenseless, protect religious liberty, affirm truth.

Yes, truth. Only fifty years ago, the great Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain observed that Americans, whatever their flaws, were less inclined to cynicism and skepticism than their European counterparts. Americans – thinkers and people alike – had a passion for truth.

Much has happened since then, of course, in America and in the world. But I’m convinced that the spirit of truth is not entirely dead among us. And that with faith, great things can grow from the “creative minorities” that Pope Benedict XVI spoke so frequently about.

We, you, form one of those creative minorities, on which so very much depends. Again, my thanks to everyone who has helped make The Catholic Thing possible this year. And to others who are reading this, please, help us keep a strong Catholic voice alive into what promises to be a challenging New Year.

Sincerely,

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Robert Royal

P.S. Please remember that your contributions are tax-deductible.

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