Ashley Crouch, contributing editor of Verily, spoke with EWTN News/CNA last month about her work with the magazine (VerilyMag.com).

Crouch, a Catholic, noted, "It’s very easy for people within the Catholic realm to want to herald goodness, truth and beauty, but beauty is seen like the unfortunate sister. Goodness and truth are the primary goals: We need to be talking about goodness and truth all the time. But beauty is a third way, it’s a very powerful way, and I think it’s going to be one of the most powerful ways of approaching the culture and of making the faith attractive to people."

She said she sees her work for the secular magazine as part of her Christian call to evangelize.

"Rather than approaching [the fashion industry] with skepticism or desiring to bracket it all, to march forward boldly and to be a storyteller using this medium that people can understand [is] what the New Evangelization is all about. If we can think of innovative ways to show beauty in all these different areas — digital, print, traditional media — [if we can] be storytellers using beauty, then I think we have a bright future."

She added, "We need to be reintegrating the heart in with beauty itself. … What we need to do is step back a little bit and think about: What is authentic beauty? And how can we be bringing that to the world?"