Joseph P. O’Mahoney, a native of Tralee, County Kerry Ireland, issued the first on February 4, 1910, for the Indiana Catholic Printing and Publishing Company. Born in 1869, O’Mahoney had immigrated to the U.S. in 1890. He had worked for the Philadelphia Ledger and had been a war correspondent for the during the Spanish-American War before moving to Indianapolis to be the political editor for the . Under Mahoney’s editorship, the was a weekly paper that published news for the dioceses of Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. When the company absorbed the of Columbus, Ohio, in March 1915, the paper became the .
O’Mahoney served as editor of the newspaper until 1932. He was a talented and outspoken journalist. He agitated for Irish independence, defended the Church, and sharply criticized Protestantism. He refuted propaganda and attacked Protestants who supported the organization during the 1920s. O’Mahoney fell prey to alcohol and drug abuse and mental collapse in the mid-1920s as he desperately sought money to keep the paper afloat. He spent some time in and spent his last years in a Catholic rest home.
Although the newspaper continued to be published privately, an editorial board of diocesan priests took over the Catholic and Record in 1932. The newspaper was dedicated to keeping the Catholic family abreast of the principal events, movements, and activities of the Catholic Church locally and abroad. Beyond diocesan concerns, the journal continued to incorporate news from outside the Church that might affect Catholic life and thought.
O’Mahoney’s successors also maintained his focus on the development and enhancement of Catholic living, with articles on events within the Indianapolis community, advice columns, and scriptural lessons. They believed that the job of the and other diocesan newspapers was to introduce a religious influence into the home and thus preserve Catholic values. In 1947, Archbishop was so convinced of the paper’s importance that he ordered the head pastors at each parish to send the paper to nonsubscribing parishioners out of their parish budgets. Within two years the paper was in 32,000 Indiana households.
In 1956, J. Francis Madden, owner of Shield Press which then published the , donated the newspaper to the archdiocese in return for the printing contract. The 1956 agreement “stipulated that the printing contract could be returned to Shield Press anytime within five years.” Archbishop Schulte invoked this clause of the agreement and returned the printing contract to Shield Press during the company’s dispute with a labor union in September 1960. The succeeded the on October 7, 1960. At the time it ceased publication on September 23, 1960, circulation had reached approximately 42,000.
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