“The Cross Standeth Whilst the World Passeth Away”

In an effort to disseminate the truth about the Catholic faith, the fifth bishop of Savannah, the Right Reverend William H. Gross, C.Ss.R., began the publication of a weekly newspaper, the Southern Cross, in September 1875. A Catholic broadsheet of eight pages with the motto “The Cross Standeth Whilst the World Passeth Away,” the paper was written and edited by the Catholic Literary Society, a team of clergy and laity. William Rankin, bookkeeper at the Savannah News, was the paper’s original publisher, although Joseph H. Gross, brother of Bishop Gross, eventually took over the publication of the paper from his printing business on East State Street in Savannah.

Subscriptions were $3 per year (a day’s wage, roughly $85 today!) and a new issue was sent to the 1,200 subscribers every Saturday. The paper contained a variety of local and national Catholic news items, editorials, fiction and poetry, and two pages of reports on the Savannah market and the city’s shipping and railroad schedules.

Troubled by a faltering economy and the close of Joseph Gross’s printing business, the “voice of Catholicism in the South” published its final issue in March 1877.

The first issues were called The Bulletin of the Catholic Laymen's Association and published through October of 1956. When the Diocese of Atlanta formed, the Bulletin of the Catholic Laymen's Association became the paper for both Dioceses from November 1956 through December of 1958, with the exception of three months in 1958 (see The Savannah Bulletin).

For three months in 1958 (January through March), the Diocese of Savannah published The Savannah Bulletin.

In 1959, The Bulletin, Diocese of Savannah Edition began publication concurrent with The Bulletin, Archdiocese of Atlanta Edition.