Did You Read the Sign This Month? Thoughts on a Passionist Ministry
by Rob Carbonneau, C.P., Ph.D.
The Passionist Historical Archives, Compassion, and Passionist Missionaries are all located in the old Sign Building on Monastery Place in Union City, NJ. Sign was published by the Passionists from 1921-1982; Fr. Harold Purcell, C.P., was the first editor from 1921-1934. Leaving the magazine and the Passionists he went on to found the City of St. Jude in Montgomery, Alabama. Build Me A City: The Life of Reverend Harold Purcell, Founder of the City of St. Jude (Montgomery, Alabama: Pioneer Press, 1984) by Sister Mary Ruth Coffman, O.S.B., is a good biography of Father Purcell.
Historians have given limited historical reflection to the contribution of Sign to the American Catholic story. Frequently America, Commonweal or Catholic World have been the magazines used to gain the Catholic view in American society. While the latter were written for an intellectual audience, Sign tended to combine the intellectual and the literary. The market was always the Catholic family.
From 1921-1982 Sign had Passionist editors: Harold Purcell (1921-1934), Theophane Maguire (1934-1943), Ralph Gorman (1943-1966), Augustine Paul Hennessy (1967-1975), Arthur McNally (1976-1979), Patrick McDonough (1979-1982). Throughout the years at least seventy Passionist priests or brothers were assigned to work in the Sign offices or to be Sign preachers. Seeing your name on the weekend list to take a Sign call meant that you entered into a unique preaching culture which had its own protocol. In the Sign offices on Monastery Place the magazine was "put to bed" with valuable assistance from a production staff of laypeople such as Claire Foy.
Circulation figures prior to 1949 are incomplete. The first issue in 1921 was about 5,000 copies. By 1923 it was 25,000; by 1934 it had reached 50,000. In 1942 there were 120,000. By December 1964 Sign was reaching 320,485; it had become the fourth most popular Catholic magazine in the country behind Columbia (1,803,300), Catholic Digest (659,000), Extension (378,000). At the same time, 1964, Sign had a greater circulation than Harper's or Atlantic Monthly.
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