Florida Catholic | ‘Tough Times’ For Spanish Paper

‘Tough times’ for Spanish paper

Diocesan budget cuts force staff reductions and restructuring of the award winning publication, La Voz Católica, which has ceased publication until September.

ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC STAFF

Published: 07.14.08

<em>La Voz Católica</em>, the award-winning Spanish language publication readers have known for the past 26 years, halted publication in June.

ILLUSTRATION | LA VOZ CATÓLICA
La Voz Católica, has been published monthly since 1982.

MIAMI | La Voz Católica (The Catholic Voice) – as readers have known it for the past 26 years – ceased publication with its June edition.

The monthly Spanish-language newspaper of the archdiocese is scheduled to resume publication – with a new format and a much-reduced staff – in September.

The decision was prompted by financial cutbacks in the Archdiocese of Miami.

“It’s not going to be produced the same way it was before because we can’t afford it,” said Father Alberto Cutié, president and general director of Pax Catholic Communications, under whose umbrella La Voz Católica has been published for the past three years.

However, he added, “La Voz Católica is going to continue. It’s going to continue in a new way.”

The winner of numerous Catholic Press Association awards, La Voz Católica has been published in one form or another since 1959, when the newly created Diocese of Miami began publishing its own newspaper, The Voice, which included one page in Spanish. That single page eventually grew to four, and in 1982 La Voz began publication as a separate newspaper.

The Voice ceased publication in 1990, when it merged into the statewide Florida Catholic after an earlier round of archdiocesan budget cutbacks.

All four of La Voz’s full-time staff members, along with an advertising representative, lost their jobs as a result of the cutbacks. That raises to 53 the total number of employees working at the Pastoral Center – the archdiocese’s central offices – who have lost their jobs since the latest cutbacks were announced in April.

“It’s across the board – tough times,” said Isaul González, station manager and chief operating officer for Pax Catholic Communications, who conveyed the news to La Voz’s staff June 27.

Pax Catholic Communications took over responsibility for La Voz in 2005. The archdiocese subsidizes the newspaper’s budget, but that subsidy was drastically cut this year. (The archdiocese’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.)

“The business plan I believe will work is going to require very little overhead and we will still continue to have a Spanish-language archdiocesan paper,” Father Cutié said.

Pax Catholic Communications also has taken over production of the weekly television Mass broadcast on ION Channel 35 Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. The change is due to the closing of the archdiocesan Television Center, also due to budget cuts.

Pax Catholic Communications is funded in its entirety by advertising revenue and donations from listeners to Radio Paz 830 AM, the 24-hour archdiocesan Spanish-language radio station.

Also produced and funded under the Pax Catholic umbrella: English-language radio programming on WLVJ 1040 AM; Creole-language radio programming on 1020 AM; Radio Paz Musical, which provides 24-hour-a-day music through the Internet; and PaxNet, which provides Catholic programming via satellite to small church-sponsored radio stations throughout Latin America.

Although details have not been finalized regarding the future staff and look of La Voz Católica, Msgr. William Hennessey, vicar general of the archdiocese, reassured its readers that “there still will be media to the Spanish-speaking community of south Florida.”

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