Of all the articles Managing Editor Barbara Beckwith has done for St. Anthony Messenger magazine, there is one of which she is proudest. In 1994, “I wrote about a Redemptorist orphanage in Thailand. It resulted in the adoption of two orphans.” Fifteen years later, she still seems awed by the power of the pen to move and to motivate.

But that’s exactly what friar-sponsored SAM has been doing since it was first published in 1893 and later morphed into St. Anthony Messenger Press, a multimedia ministry that produces websites, newsletters, CDs, books and audiobooks, videos and DVDs. One thread binds them all: “We have the power to inspire people,” says Barbara. The Good News is good news, whether you read it on a page, download it from a computer or pop it into the CD player of your car.

Since the debut of St. Anthony Messenger, the Franciscan family magazine that started it all, the mission has remained the same: “to evangelize, preach in the style of Francis, Anthony and Clare,” says Fr. Dan Kroger, CEO of the Cincinnati-based SAMP, “and to do it in a way to inspire and inform people to live a life of faith in a more human way.”

The Messenger has consistently done two things well: It has clarified some of the thorniest issues of our times, and it has taken centuries-old wisdom and made it widely accessible to a world that now, more than ever, needs to hear its healing message.

There was no grand plan behind it. “The friars got into publishing as an extension of their popular preaching ministry,” says Fr. Pat McCloskey, editor of SAM since 2003. St. Anthony’s Messenger (as it was known until 1917) was a product of its times. “In the beginning, these were priests active in big German parishes and very much in contact with people and addressing questions they had,” says Fr. Jeremy Harrington, former publisher. To respond to those questions the magazine’s first editor, Fr. Ambrose Sanning, devised a format that endured for decades. The 6-by-9-inch publication, wrapped in a brown-toned image of St. Anthony of Padua, included a poem, a featured saint, notices for Third Order Franciscans, articles about Franciscan concerns and letters of thanks for favors from St. Anthony. Ambrose introduced the periodical with a note that explained, “The St. Anthony’s Messenger is a messenger of peace” with “a mission of love.”

From the beginning, “The Franciscan spirit really informed the magazine,” says Jeremy. “Our approach was positive, stressing God’s love and goodness.” Pastors labeled it “wholesome” because it embraced each member of the family, with games for children, dress patterns for housewives, a “Wise Man’s Corner” to which readers could direct their problems. In the early 20th century, an army of door-to-door salesmen that extended to 20 cities propelled SAM’s circulation into the hundreds of thousands. That’s how Barbara, who joined the Messenger in 1974, discovered the magazine: Her mother met a salesman in the hall of their apartment building in Chicago.

Throughout the Depression and World War II, “The magazine’s core vision proved durable,” wrote historian Daniel Hurley in a 1992 retrospective on its first 100 years. But it was in the 1960s that SAM truly came into its own, reflecting the spiritual turmoil generated by the Second Vatican Council. It was then that “the Province leadership decided St. Anthony Messenger needed to be a different kind of magazine,” says Pat. They chose Frs. Leonard Foley and Jeremy Harrington — issues-oriented, media-savvy, graphics-minded — to lead their periodical into the modern age. In the wake of Vatican II, editors knew that the public’s thirst for knowledge would be insatiable.

They also knew the perspective of lay people on staff would be invaluable. “It’s a two generation job to get people to realize that WE are the Church, not just the priests, bishops and popes,” Barbara says. “It’s us.” Education was in order, and SAM was there to provide it. One controversial issue in the ‘60s explored the role of conscience in following the teachings of the Church. Letters to the editor came fast and furious when the magazine published “A Mother’s Thoughts on Birth Control,” written by a parent of eight children, one of whom had Down syndrome. “We were orthodox, although some people thought we were not,” Jeremy says. “It was a different approach than people were used to,” practical rather than theoretical.

“We were out there early with the story on clerical sex abuse,” Barbara says, “and we have not slacked up at all on coverage. I’m personally proud that we have not shied away from difficult social issues such as the death penalty, immigration reform, the arms race and the defense of human rights.” If there’s one thing readers of SAM have learned, it is that faith requires constant cultivation.

Today SAM’s greatest challenge is survival, as a foundering economy, evolving media technology and shifts in culture threaten publications of every kind. “We have to radically change, be more economically lean,” says Dan Kroger. To that end, parent company SAMP recently reduced its staff and is redefining its strategy to be more competitive. Whatever medium they prefer — a printed page, an audio book, a social network-ing site or an MP3 player — people want to be inspired and they want to feel connected, Dan says. SAMP will survive “if we pay attention to the things our readers want and need and how they want it.”

They may not find answers to all of life’s questions on the pages of St. Anthony Messenger or its progeny in print and in cyberspace. But there is one thing they will find, Barbara says. “We can offer hope.”

(To learn more about SAMP, visit www.AmericanCatholic.org)