Parish letter

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Pfarrbrief , in Austria the parish gazette , is the name of the periodical membership publication of the Catholic parish , usually issued by the respective parish council . The comparable publication Protestant parishes subtitled as a church newsletter .

The parish letter is usually the most important tool of parish public relations work . The booklets contain articles on Christian preaching and religious life as well as organizational notices and invitations to church services, events and activities of the parish as well as personal information (on the occasion of baptisms , marriages , first communion , confirmation , funeral ). Since around the turn of the millennium, there has been a noticeable development from a bulletin for church-committed Catholics to a members' journal.

The frequency of publication varies from twice a year to weekly; the predominant format is DIN A5, followed by DIN A4 and various special formats. The booklets are mostly illustrated (photos and graphics) and often reach 36 to 48 pages. Editing and layout are mostly done voluntarily by parishioners - as is the delivery of the printed booklet to all Catholic households, in some parishes also to all households in the parish area.

A nationwide survey of parish editors-in-chief carried out on behalf of the Association of Dioceses of Germany at the beginning of 2014 confirms the findings made above. The study carried out according to scientific criteria may a. to the result that the parish letter with a total circulation of 6.6 million to 7.5 million per issue is the print medium of the Catholic Church in Germany with the greatest reach.

literature

  • Basic paper on parish letter work: a handout from the journalistic commission of the German Bishops' Conference. Bonn 1995.
  • Klaus Vellguth: We can be proud of: public relations work in the community. Don-Bosco-Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-7698-1187-9 .
  • MDG / IfD trend monitor "Religious Communication 2003", MDG, Institute for Demoskopie Allensbach 2003.
  • Media department in the Archdiocese of Cologne (ed.): Everyone should know. Guidelines for public relations workers in the pastoral care areas and institutions of the Archdiocese of Cologne. Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-9813942-0-7 .
  • Christian Klenk, Thomas Rinklake: Member magazines with millions of copies . For the first time, a nationwide survey provides extensive data on the basic medium of the parish letter. In: Communicatio socialis. Vol. 47, No. 2 (2014), URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:824-cs.v47n2.660.g6599 .