RELIGION / JOHN DART : Future Bright for Catholic Register : Publications: Despite falling circulation, the Encino-based national newspaper carries a strong reputation left by its recently departed editor.

Despite declining circulation and other economic problems, a national Catholic newspaper published in Encino has a brighter future--largely because of the achievements of its recently departed editor.

Francis X. Maier, 44, who edited the weekly National Catholic Register for the past 14 years, begins work officially next week in the Denver Archdiocese as general manager of its newspaper and secretary for communications.

In decades gone by, the National Catholic Register was known for its anti-Communist zeal and articles related to the political medical interests of wealthy owner Patrick J. Frawley Jr.

But under Maier’s leadership, the weekly newspaper won a number of Catholic Press Assn. awards and carved a journalistic niche for itself between the better-known National Catholic Reporter on the left and the acerbic Wanderer on the far right.

“I felt there was room for a center-right, orthodox voice in national Catholic newspapers,” Maier said in an interview. “Although our perspective has always been very sympathetic to the Vatican, we have to be rooted in reality. You can’t make policy on bad information.”

Fellow Catholic journalists agree. “I thought Fran Maier was always very conscientious and tried to travel a moderate course,” said Thomas C. Fox, editor of the Kansas City-based National Catholic Reporter.

Barbara Beckwith, past president of the Catholic Press Assn., said the Register attained a good reputation under Maier. “Basically, they began to play fair, keeping opinions out of the news columns,” she said.

Much of Catholic journalism, regardless of quality, has been affected by declines in circulation, with a lot of the blame attributed to the economy and a progressively older readership. St. Anthony’s Messenger, a magazine for which Beckwith is managing editor, is down to 330,000 subscribers from a peak of 425,000.

Indeed, Maier said that the Register was “in the high 60,000s” at one point, but its total paid circulation now stands at 26,000. The Register’s companion weekly, the family feature-oriented Catholic Twin Circle, has a paid circulation of 22,500, according to the Catholic Press Assn.

Reports that the papers were for sale circulated more than a year ago.

“Conversations took place with other parties about the sale of the papers about two years ago,” said John Prizer, the new associate publisher of Twin Circle Publishing, which owns the two publications and is part of Frawley Corp.

Frawley corporate officers and the newspapers share the same suite of corporate offices in a Ventura Boulevard high-rise.

“Nothing was concluded then, and to my knowledge the papers are not for sale now,” Prizer said.

The Times was told by a Frawley official in 1989 that the two papers were losing money. At present, however, Prizer said the two newspapers are “showing a very small profit.”

Although Gerardine Frawley, Patrick’s wife, is publisher of the papers, the hands-on general manager for the last two years has been son Michael Frawley, credited by Maier with sparking new optimism in the publishing company.

“The company has been run very well by Michael in a professional and effective manner,” said Maier, who said he resigned his job under amiable circumstances. Besides moving to a better-paying job, Maier said he was ready to trade his small podium on the national scene “with its pontificators on the left and right” for involvement in church life at the local level.

A former screenwriter, Maier said he was indebted to the “Frawley family for giving me a lot of freedom” to reshape the Register’s approach to news.

The Frawleys themselves tend to avoid contact with other news media. Patrick Frawley agreed to an interview with The Times in 1989, on the condition that he would talk only about his company’s Schick hospitals and clinics which attempt to cure alcohol, drug and smoking addiction through negative reinforcement techniques.

The Frawley family might easily have given up on the papers except that they knew that the decline in circulation was not due to the publications’ journalistic appeal but instead was caused by the firm’s longtime marketing strategy, which depended on selling most of its copies in bulk to parishes. “Parishes lately have been less and less inclined to invest in a dispensable item,” Maier said.

Since a change in that strategy about 10 years ago, the Register has increased individual subscriptions to about 40% of its total of 26,000, according to Prizer. By contrast, the National Catholic Reporter stands at 48,197 sworn paid circulation, of which more than 90% are individual subscribers.

The Register will not name a new editor until mid-September, but a strong candidate is the 36-year-old acting editor, Joop (pronounced YOHP) Koopman, who moved up from deputy editor. The multilingual Koopman, a UCLA graduate, helped cover Eastern Europe for the Register in 1990 and was instrumental in building the Register’s network of foreign correspondents.

Filling Koopman’s spot on the paper is Gabe Meyer, 46, a published fiction writer and former correspondent in Jerusalem and Belgrade for the paper. Meyer will continue to edit Mary’s People, a monthly tabloid supplement to the Register and Twin Circle that chronicles the various claims of appearances by Mary, the mother of Jesus, or receipt of messages from her.

It is apparent that Prizer and the Frawleys hope that the Register and Twin Circle will be in a position to market their news-and-commentary package as the print and broadcasting media become enmeshed with computer systems, and cable and telephone companies in the future.

“I think there is definitely a need and a market for information and opinions on the things we stand for,” said Prizer, 53, a film writer who produced a documentary on campus political correctness controversies to be shown on Public Broadcasting stations in late September.

Last month, Prizer described in the Register the possibilities of what have been called “smart boxes” coordinating the functions of a television, telephone and computer.

“For the first time, tens of millions of families could have access in their homes to presentations on subjects like love and marriage, prayer, the Commandments and the pro-life movement--if only someone will produce them,” Prizer wrote.