The Catholic Spirit
Catholic diocesan newspaper
The Catholic Spirit is the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Founded by John Ireland in 1911 as an 8-page weekly named The Catholic Bulletin and with a subscription base of 2,500, it was renamed to The Catholic Spirit in 1996 and currently circulates to 54,000 households in the Twin Cities area twice per month.
History
Background
In 1866, a small newspaper called The Northwestern Chronicle began to be published by John Crosby Devereux in Saint Paul, Minnesota. While not originally an official Catholic newspaper, it received the support of Bishop Thomas Grace, who used it to communicate to the clergy. Grace also granted the operation free rent in a building in St. Paul's Catholic block. However, facing financial difficulties a decade after its founding, Devereux sold the Chronicle to coadjutor bishop of Saint Paul John Ireland for $2,000 ($60,469 in 2025). After settling his debts, Devereux netted a total of $1,800 ($54,422 in 2025) from his ten years running the paper. The Chronicle under Bishop Ireland did not recover from its financial difficulties, incurring debts which he covered personally, and in 1900 he sold it to the Catholic Citizen newspaper in Milwaukee.
The Catholic Bulletin
In 1911, then-Archbishop John Ireland founded The Catholic Bulletin with Father James Reardon as its first editor.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Catholic Spirit” is catholic diocesan newspaper. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Catholic, Spirit and diocesan, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “catholic diocesan newspaper” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7721738. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1996, 1866 and 2025.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Catholic Spirit”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Catholic Spirit primary sources, The Catholic Spirit archive and Catholic research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Catholic Spirit”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Catholic Spirit” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.