Crux of the Matter

By: Rich Kane

A new pope is always newsworthy. And when that new pontiff starts making a cultural imprint like the one Pope Francis has—cover of Rolling Stone? Check!—well, that just makes him more newsworthy.

So much that the charismatic leader of the Catholic Church is the main inspiration for Crux, a new vertical website from The Boston Globe that recently went live at cruxnow.com.

Globe editors behind Crux say that the site will cover all things Catholic—everything from Easter recipes to compelling features (what does happen when a Catholic dates a Mormon?) to travel pieces (what’s a good hotel to stay at in Rome when visiting the Vatican?) to sports (what Catholic schools should you follow during March Madness?) to an ethical advice column, ingeniously dubbed “OMG,” where answers to questions such as “Should I return a dress after wearing it once?” and “Can a Catholic go to Seder?” will be posed.

Yet Globe editor Brian McGrory makes clear that Crux (Latin for “cross”) will neither be fluff-filled, nor will it shy away from hard news and controversial topics such as gay marriage, abortion, and the involvement of women in the church. Crux “will be highly journalistic,” he says, which you’d hope coming from a newspaper that bagged a 2003 Pulitzer for its coverage of the priest sex abuse scandal.

“There are a lot of very good sites that explore Catholicism, but we’re trying to be different,” McGrory said. “Most of these have some kind of lens they’re looking through. We’re trying to be more down the middle. The goal is not just to cover the Catholic Church, but to explore how the faith touches people. We want to be truly accessible.”

To that end, McGrory has named John L. Allen Jr., who he calls “the premiere Vatican reporter in the country,” to a Crux associate editor’s slot. Argentine journalist Inés San Martín is stationed in Rome and will cover Vatican news. Other reporters will cover a broad range of spiritual issues.

“We’ll give full voice to disagreements within the church and the faithful,” said Crux editor Teresa Hanafin. “Our goal is to be thorough and fair. If Catholics are talking about it, we’ll write about it.”

Crux is a free advertising-supported site, and to helm that end, McGrory hired away Terri Lynn from the National Catholic Reporter, who he calls “the best Catholic ad sales person in the country.” On the marketing side, Crux will sponsor special events, such as a September panel discussion on Pope Francis’s impact that featured Allen and assorted clergy and academics, which was live-streamed on the site.

Much like BetaBoston, the Globe’s first online vertical spotlighting the city’s tech and startup culture, both McGrory and Hanafin think Crux will appeal to a diverse audience that’s outside its target readership. Hanafin says Crux will be of interest not only to the Boston area’s 1.8 million Catholics, but that people of other faiths, or no faith at all, should find some content worth perusing.

“One group I’m hoping will read Crux are ex-Catholics,” Hanafin said. “I know enough people who don’t go to mass any longer, but they still feel this pull. It’s like if you root for your hometown sports team and you move away, you still root for them. It’s a way to keep up and learn about what’s going on.