By Patrick Schmadeke
Evangelization in the World
As Barb Arland-Fye moves towards a new season of life in retirement, I thought it timely to offer a reflection on the last several years, both on her overarching efforts at the paper as well as my personal interactions with her as a monthly columnist.
The pages of The Catholic Messenger reveal an editor that, to her core, has a fidelity to person and community-centered reporting. This line runs throughout Barb’s work. Ours is a large diocese, geographically. To publish a weekly paper that covers the happenings of parishes across 22 counties, as well as national and international news, is no small feat. Barb and her staff have consistently aimed to accomplish this feat. She has led the way in telling the story of our local Church within the story of the universal Church for the last 23 years.
A magnet on a file cabinet in her office quotes St. John Paul II, “War is a defeat for humanity.” Barb is an exemplar of upholding human dignity from womb to tomb. Like the first prophetic writings in our tradition, from Amos, she echoes the call to let “justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” Barb has not only told the story of the people of our diocese, she has told the story of God in our diocese. This ever-unfolding story is of a God who loves all people regardless of the human categories and barriers we create to distance ourselves from one another. In our individualistic culture, through her storytelling, Barb helps the reader see all people as children of God. We are one human family.
In the Messenger, Barb inherited a newspaper with a tremendous history and national recognition. For example, the Messenger published the 16 documents of the Second Vatican Council in print form. In continuity with this, Barb published our draft diocesan report for the Synod on Synodality to invite feedback from readers. This is something Pope Francis invited all dioceses to do. Barb was enthusiastic to stand in the tradition of the paper and participate in this innovative step to garner participation from the people of God.
On a personal level, I have experienced Barb as a “yes, and” person. I contacted her in my first semester of graduate studies with a pitch: to write a monthly column that relates what I was learning in theology courses to everyday experience in the Church. Since that fall of 2017, the theme of the column has evolved from reflections on theological and historical coursework to evangelization in our diocese. Barb has been there every step of the way to collaborate and brainstorm.
There is a saying in the world of homiletics, “kill your darlings,” that reminds preachers that an idea or phrase they really want to preach might actually be getting in the way of what God wants them to preach. The same is true of writers. Sometimes I want to hold onto an idea or phrase that gets in the way of a larger message more than it helps it. Barb has always been an honest and gentle editor and guide as we have collaboratively molded around 90 columns. Ever pastoral, she let me take one month off in the spring of 2021 as our family was preparing to move to Davenport for me to work for our diocese.
Barb has always been open and enthusiastic about wider brainstorming as well. She is quick to say that she is not a digital native but she is just as quick to say “yes” to learn a new technology. For example, she knows that young people engage news online, so she is passionate about leveraging social media to share the Messenger’s rich content with the next generation. This has been a major and essential step for the Messenger.
I am grateful for Barb’s vision and leadership, her energy and passion and, most of all, her faithfulness to the author of all creation with whom she stewarded and co-authored the story of our diocese for many years. Thank you, Barb, for your witness as a disciple of love and messenger of hope.
(Patrick Schmadeke is the director of Evangelization for the Diocese of Davenport.)
