One of the oldest and most trusted names in Catholic media in the United States, Our Sunday Visitor Inc. announced July 6 that it will launch OSV News, a new Catholic news service, on Jan. 1, 2023. Subscribers to the new service will access OSV News at CatholicNews.com, the current site of Catholic News Service. The announcement was made by OSV Publisher Scott P. Richert at the annual Catholic Media Conference in Portland, Oregon.
“After the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops decided to bring the domestic operations of Catholic News Service to a close at the end of 2022,” Scott P. Richert said, “we started talks with the USCCB and have reached an agreement to acquire rights to the platform that CNS uses to produce and distribute its content. Current subscribers to CNS who sign up for OSV News before the end of the year will have a seamless experience as CNS closes its domestic news service on Dec. 31 and OSV News launches on the same site the very next day.”
OSV News will provide national and international news, analysis, editorials, commentary and features from a Catholic perspective every day. In addition to original OSV News content and an ever-growing library of materials from OSV’s periodicals and websites, OSV News will feature articles from a wide range of content partners, including the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications and Aleteia, the world’s largest Catholic website. (A full list of content partners will be released later this year.) OSV will also collaborate closely with an extensive network of Catholic diocesan publications to syndicate their content through OSV News.
Beyond a rebranding and a redesign of CatholicNews.com, the tools that subscribers to CNS currently use will remain the same. All new content from CNS Rome (which will continue to operate independently of OSV) will be available to subscribers of OSV News. (For dioceses or episcopal conferences who do not subscribe to OSV News, free access to new CNS Rome content will be provided by the USCCB, as the USCCB promised when it announced the closing of CNS’s domestic operations.)
OSV will also be acquiring all of the digital archives owned by CNS, along with rights to existing and future content from CNS Rome and certain third parties, and will provide access to those for subscribers to OSV News. “The digital archives of CNS are of great importance, both historically and as background for Catholic journalists working today,” Richert said. “It is essential that they remain available on the same platform that thousands of Catholic media professionals use every day.”
Subscription pricing for OSV News will be announced in September. “We understand the financial pressures that Catholic publications face today,” Richert said, “so we are working to make OSV News as affordable as possible, while not compromising the quantity and quality of content offered through our service.”
Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend (and chairman of the board of directors of OSV) declared, “I am very happy and grateful that OSV will provide this important service for the Church in our country, continuing the great legacy that Archbishop John Francis Noll began over a century ago.”
OSV was founded in 1912 by Father John Francis Noll. Its flagship publication, Our Sunday Visitor, has been published weekly for 110 years. Father Noll, who became bishop of what is now the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and was later named an honorary archbishop for his service to the Catholic media in the United States and internationally, was an early supporter of CNS and of the Catholic Press Association (now the Catholic Media Association). In the mid-20th century, OSV was instrumental in helping numerous dioceses establish their own newspapers, many of which were printed in OSV’s current Huntington, Indiana, headquarters.
“OSV’s long history of support for a robust Catholic press made our decision to launch OSV News not only obvious but necessary,” Richert said. “In a world that is desperately hungry for the truth, a vibrant Catholic media is needed now more than ever. OSV News is the concrete symbol of our commitment to innovate and collaborate with our fellow members of the Catholic press to bring about a new renaissance in Catholic media — and a brighter future for the Catholic Church in the United States and beyond.”
To be notified when subscription pricing and other details about OSV News are available, go to OSV.com/OSVNews.
