Business gurus have coined the word “opporthreat” to describe a change that could go either way: a threat or an opportunity. The Register was presented with an opporthreat a few weeks ago when our longtime executive editor, Tom Hoopes, told me he’d accepted a position with Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. My immediate reaction was to feel excited for Tom and his family — not to mention Benedictine College — but distressed over the future of Circle Media, the Register’s parent company. Tom led the day-to-day operations of the Register’s editorial department for 10 years and, along with his wife, April, he guided Faith & Family magazine for the last six. I could hardly envision this apostolate without his gifted hand at the rudder of these two publications and their respective websites.

However, when the Lord closes one door, he opens another; in some cases, more than one. In August, Dan Burke joined Circle Media as its new executive director. He comes to us from Focus on the Family, where he was thriving but had been feeling an increasing call to work more closely with the Catholic Church since his 2005 conversion from evangelical Protestantism to the Catholic faith. From his first day forward he has been energizing the staff and galvanizing our wide and varied abilities into a united force.

Soon after that, Legionary Father John Bartunek came on board as the first-ever president of Circle Media. Father Bartunek is best-known for his book Inside the Passion, and for authoring Circle Press’ biggest-selling book, The Better Part, a Christ-centered resource for personal prayer. He will be shepherding the “big picture” mission and vision of our media apostolate and the Register’s role within it.

Join Register staff in praying that all our opporthreats turn out so happily.