An idea born of the need to provide accurate information about the Catholic Church and its followers blossomed from a small Indiana town to deliver news and features about the faith, arriving as a mailbox visitor to citizens across the U.S.
In 1912, a Diocese of Fort Wayne priest, Father (and future Archbishop) John Francis Noll embarked on a publishing adventure. The resulting publication would provide any American who possessed “a moderate degree of intelligence and fairness” with counters to anti-Catholic literature of the day and a broadsheet filled with national and world news as seen through a Catholic perspective along with features on inspirational figures of faith.
Our Sunday Visitor originated in Huntington, where tens, then hundreds of thousands of copies of the weekly newspaper were printed for a circulation that grew rapidly during the World War I years.
Pope Pius XII created the Diocese of Gary in 1956, which was shepherded by Bishop Andrew G. Grutka until 1984. Ministering to 25% of residents of the four counties who identified as Roman Catholics, Bishop Grutka partnered with OSV to create a print product that featured local news enfolded within a regular OSV edition. This local insert started with coverage of the first bishop’s installation in February 1957.
Region faithful perused the pages of the Gary Sunday Visitor to enjoy the words of their bishop, coverage of Catholic Youth Organization sports and updates about organizations such as Altar and Rosary Sodalities and the Knights of Columbus.
Soon after Pope John Paul II appointed Auxiliary Bishop Norbert F. Gaughan of the Diocese of Greensburg to be the second bishop of Gary, the syndicated writer and photography aficionado set out to update diocesan communications. In 1986, Bishop Gaughan began to assemble a team that would help transition the Gary Sunday Visitor into a new weekly newspaper of local origin.
In the premier edition, published on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, Jan. 11, 1987, Bishop Gaughan wrote that the Northwest Indiana Catholic was “long in planning,” and “has only begun to move toward a shape that we hope will be a source of pride for the people of this diocese.”
Tapped to direct the creation of an innovative publication was Brian T. Olszewski, a South Dakota resident and director of the office of communications for the Diocese of Rapid City and editor of the West River Catholic.
Olszewski teamed with Dale Bickel, the 20-year editor of the Gary OSV, and Monsignor Edward F. Litot to get the newspaper off the ground amid the move of the diocesan offices from Gary to the new Pastoral Center in Merrillville.
Working with a local publishing and design firm, the editor and bishop went back and forth about things such as the masthead design.
“Bishop Gaughan was not new to the Catholic press,” said Olszewski, who became the NWI Catholic’s longest serving editor (1987-2004). “His instructions to me were: quote, ‘I want my kind of newspaper.’ But he never did spell that out.”
The NWI Catholic would be chock full of stories featuring the “faces and places” of the diocese from coverage of liturgies at the Cathedral of the Holy Angels, to recreational events at Camp Lawrence. Each subsequent Gary bishop wrote a column, reaching out to thousands of readers at once.
Olszewski said the hiring of a young photographer and Highland native Karen Callaway as a visual storyteller was key. “Her photos were a big reason why people read the paper. She was also a good spokesperson … everybody knew Karen.”
A member of the Archdiocese of Chicago communications office, Callaway happily recalled photographing excitable students, snapping just the right photo for a biographical article of a senior, or traveling to document an international mission.
“We just wanted to improve the standard of photography in the Catholic press,” said Callaway who coordinated a charitable endeavor called Eyes of Gary, which introduced inner-city youth to the craft of photography.
Long hours developing 35 mm film did not deter her from her mission.
“We had fun (at the NWI Catholic),” Callaway said. “We grew up together in a way, in hard times and good times.”
Bishop Dale J. Melczek arrived on orders from Pope John Paul II in 1992 to assist Bishop Gaughan, who had suffered a stroke. The former auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit carried the bishop’s crozier (staff) upon Bishop Gaughan’s retirement.
During Bishop Melczek’s tenure, special sections would be produced as inserts to the newspaper, including for the “Great Jubilee” Year 2000 covering diocesan celebrations. According to Olszewski and Callaway, the punctual Bishop Melczek somehow found a way to have his topical weekly columns written weeks, if not months, in advance.
Though maintaining a base of readers became more challenging with the advancement of computers and online content, and with uneven promotion from pastor to pastor, in each of Olszewski’s years as editor, the Northwest Indiana Catholic was in the black.
Olszewski, who when he first arrived, scrolled news updates printed by teletype machines and typed and manually set layouts. Then, by the late 1980s and into the 90s, he helped usher in desktop publishing for his office.
“We were doing the right thing: putting out a quality product, we weren’t losing money, and we tried to engage readers,” said Olszewski.
Valerie McManus has served each of Gary’s bishops since 1969, presently as a chancery specialist. She observed common qualities among those individuals who brought the NWI Catholic into the post-millennium era, and referred to them as true “professionals.”
“I know they worked long hours; they were not strictly nine to five,” McManus said. “They did what was needed to put out the best paper each week.
She added, “It provided a great service to the diocese.”
