The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown has new plans to reach out to members of the church next year.

Bishop David Bonnar says the diocese will start publishing a new magazine named The Catholic Echo in the spring of 2023.

The plan is to publish 10 times a year.

The Echo replaces Current Catholic Exponent newspaper, which ends operations in February 2023.

Bonnar says it will keep the parish up to date on major initiatives, activities and will have a renewed focus on faith.

“The parish is not an outdated institution; precisely because it possesses great flexibility, it can assume quite different contours depending on the openness and missionary creativity of the pastor and the community. While certainly not the only institution which evangelizes, if the parish proves capable of self-renewal and constant adaptivity, it continues to be ‘the Church living in the midst of the homes of her sons and daughters.’ This presumes that it really is in contact with the homes and the lives of its people, and does not become a useless structure out of touch with people or a self-absorbed group made up of a chosen few,” Bonnar wrote in his online messages. (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 28; quoting also from Pope Saint John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, no. 438).

The magazine will be sent free to parish members. 

The Catholic Echo will also feature a new website version that will offer continuous updates. The website is planned to launch in early 2023.