First ever Catholic Daily Newspaper

Press Release - 22 September 2010

Papal Visit newspaper - A vehicle for dialogue and evangelisation

Last week, CathCom, in association with Premier Christian Radio, published a daily newspaper for each day of the Papal Visit. CathCom's original idea was for to print 20,000 papers each day and charge 20p for them. Having contacted advertisers support for the publication came in, and in August Premier Christian Radio offered to pay for the "Papal Visit" paper to be free and increased the number of copies printed to 200,000.

The paper was distributed at virually every place the Pope went. Aside from the obvious venues it was distributed at Glasgow, Heathrow and Birmingham Airports. It was handed out by cabin crews on flights from Glasgow to London. Copies were even given to the executives in Glasgow who had co-ordinated the Pope's flight.

CathCom's, Nick Layton said: "it was a huge project to undertake, but met with an incredible response. Our team came into direct contact with over 200,000 people over the four days, and we had many messages of thanks for CathCom and Premier at the time and afterwards."

Permission was not given to distribute the papers inside the main events. This made the whole project much harder, however, it was the best aspect of the four days: "distributing papers outside the events, meant we were able to spend the time during the events with local residents, protesters and those who did not have a ticket. Some people were so grateful that they insisted on paying up to £2.50 for a paper, even though we insisted it was free. We also actively saught out local residents to give them a paper in thanks for putting up with all the disruption."

Nick continued, "Thanks has to go out to our team who worked up to 22 hours a day to make this happen and also to Premier Christian Radio without whose help the paper would not have been free and the project would not have been so successful."

The papers became an ongoing theme for the Papal Visit and many people were actively looking for the paper when they reached an event. Daniel Griffiths, CathCom's Logistics Manager, said, "people had valued the previous day's paper so much that they came over to us asking to get hold of todays copy. We even had people saying that they had collected 3 issues and could the get hold of the fourth. Since we have had emails asking for this as well we are now going to be offering the full set to people as a souvenir."

The distribution team were frequently given access to walk up and down the road that the Pope was taking to and from the events. This allowed them to talk with the public and crucially meet protesters. "The experience of meeting protesters and those who were inconvenienced by the visit was actually more important than the papers themselves. We were, as one protester put it, able to 'put the humanity back into the debate' instead of corresponding through inflammatory headlines", said Nick.

At Twickenham, many people waited behind barriers to see the Pope while protesters held a rally. Austen Weston, the project's Distribution Manager, said "there was nothing for the crowd or protesters to do other than talk to this group of people in yellow wandering around on the other side of the barriers. As we became a focus it was great to talk with everyone. We also became a focus for press interviews of all kinds, both for and against the visit." The distribution team gave many interviews for TV and radio crews from all overt the world during the course of the days. They also clarified and corrected reports that were being made based on incorrect information.

"Seeing non Catholics and non Christians wanting to read a Catholic newspaper was wonderful", he continued, "and sitting on a tube on the outskirts of North London watching the person opposite reading one of the papers was humbling. The extent to which this project evangelised was quite unexpected."

All four papers are available at www.papalvisitpaper.co.uk.