Hey everybody,
Merry Christmas!
We here at The Pillar are taking a few days off this Christmas, to celebrate with our families the birth of the Lord. But this is important, so we wanted to reach out.
As you know, The Pillar is an apostolate for us — a journalism project that begins with our love for the Church, and our conviction that loving the Church means telling the truth about what’s working, and what’s in need of reform.
Every report, every investigation, every interview or analysis — every piece of our work — begins with prayer that we might serve the Church well, in our mission as journalists.
As we prepare for new projects in 2024, we’re grateful for the success we’ve had this past year.
Our investigations played a major role in the trial and conviction of financial embezzlers and fraudsters at the Vatican.
Our relentless pursuit of justice saw a diocesan bishop forced to resign from his office — after we discovered how he had covered up abuse allegations, and misused diocesan funds along the way.
We uncovered the sexual misconduct of a prominent priest, even when it cost us subscribers and supporters.
And we uncovered plans to revise the rules for a papal conclave — and then saw the Vatican walk those plans back.
Meanwhile, we covered the removal of a prominent American bishop well before anyone else ever had the story. We got synodal documents while they were still under debate, told you about confidential Vatican documents kept on an open server, and gave you the behind-the-scenes at the USCCB.
We covered an anti-Christian pogrom few others saw, covered Nigeria from the ground, brought you the push for public Vatican accountability, and covered — smartly, and seriously — one of the strangest stories to hit the Church in recent years.
We interviewed prominent Vatican leaders on breaking news, explained controversial and complicated topics, and broke news about persecuted Christians.
We brought you cool feature stories and interviews — showing the face of the Church, close to home, and around the world.
We also brought you a lot of data-based reporting unlike anything you can find in Catholic media, and a pragmatic parish “solutions” series we’re very proud of.
Along the way, each week, we brought you great newsletters, The Pillar Post, in which we shared reflections on the life of the Church — and a lot more.
We are so proud of the work that we do. And, like I say, we do it because we love the Church.
But here’s the deal — we’ve chosen to shape our journalism project at The Pillar in a particular way.
We want to follow every story wherever it leads us — we want to follow it to the truth — and we are convinced the only way to do that is to build a subscribed-funded project, dependent on the trust and confidence of our readers.
We built The Pillar because we’re concerned about the corrosive impact of big money on Catholic journalism.
By design, we’re not funded by per-click advertising, which leads to content-farms churning out silly and unreasonable stories, all for the prospect of making money by sensationalism.
We’re also not funded by major givers writing seven-figure checks, or with a big endowment from foundations — because we don’t want the expectation of serving anyone else’s agenda.
Those approaches aren’t for us. We want to be independent, faithful, and committed to getting the truth.
To make that happen, we fund our newsroom just like this: If you think the work we do is worth paying for, we ask you to subscribe. If you think the Church is better off because of The Pillar, become a part of our team.
If you want to see what we do in 2024 — how we continue a mission of public accountability and ecclesial reform — help us stay in business. Help us grow our reach. Subscribe today.
We’re a newsstand with an honesty box. We believe that if you read it, and you care about it, you’ll support The Pillar. We know that you love the Church just as much as we do.
If you subscribe, you’ll have access to Starting Seven, our unbeatable daily news roundup. You’ll get the weekly bonus episodes of The Pillar Podcast.
But mostly, when you subscribe, you’ll help ensure public accountability — reform and renewal — in the Church we all love.
Today’s the day. Please subscribe.
And Merry Christmas.
Please be assured of our prayers, and please pray for us — we need it.
Yours in Christ,
JD Flynn
editor-in-chief
The Pillar
