Left-leaning Canadian Catholic newspaper publishes last issue

Published: 2006-11-28

TORONTO (CNS) -- Catholic New Times, Toronto's herald of left-leaning Catholicism, has ceased publication after 30 years. Spiraling mailing costs and dwindling subscribers doomed the publication, which rose to challenge The Catholic Register, also based in Toronto, in 1976. The final press run was 4,200 copies for an issue dated Nov. 29. A little more than a decade ago, subscriptions peaked at more than 12,000. Diane Bisson, editor and publisher, said the paper "had a very important role to play. I don't think that need for a progressive voice within the Canadian Catholic Church is gone." Bisson said she predicts the paper and the community of writers, artists and activists behind it will rise again in some other form, possibly as a Web site. "It's important to understand that it is the paper that's coming to closure," she said. "If we profess the paschal mystery, by definition Christians believe that when something dies then there is the possibility for rebirth."

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