Mark Witbeck, vice president and director of finance and operations, is retiring after 30 years at Ave Maria Press.
Publisher Thomas Grady acknowledged that it was “impossible to summarize adequately the many contributions that Mark has made during his 30-year tenure at Ave Maria Press. He and his seasoned team of colleagues are responsible for developing, maintaining, and improving the infrastructure that allows the rest of the rest of us to do our jobs.”
Grady credited Witbeck with creating and refining the tools and metrics that Ave uses to help measure its performance and its success as a business; transitioning the accounting department from adding machines and early spreadsheets to the sophisticated computer systems we use now; spearheading the effort to acquire the Thomas More, Christian Classics, and Forest of Peace imprints for Ave in 2003; leading the effort to professionalize the company’s shipping and warehousing operation while maintaining a near-perfect efficiency rate; and overseeing the closing of Ave’s printing business in 2012. Grady noted that Witbeck has ensured a strong, professional, and productive relationship with the Congregation of Holy Cross, United States Province of Priest and Brothers, of which Ave is an apostolate.
“Ave Maria Press has truly been a great place to work with a supportive board of directors, a great management team, and a dedicated, long-term staff,” Witbeck said. “We have seen tremendous change and disruption in the publishing industry in the past 30 years, but always came out stronger in the end.”
Outside of his work at Ave Maria Press, Witbeck opened the first Sports Clips franchise in South Bend in 2009 and a second in 2012. He sold his stores in 2017 in preparation for retirement. He has served on the board of directors for First Tee of Indiana-Michigan since 2013.
Prior to becoming controller at Ave in 1989, Witbeck worked in community newspapers in Houston, Texas, and Big Rapids, Michigan, and managed a video rental business for Family Video. He was also elected the youngest-ever member of the Big Rapids City Commission at age 26.
Witbeck and his wife Lana have a daughter Analise. He plans to christen his retirement in September by spending a year cruising the Great Loop.
Ave Maria Press was founded by Fr. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., in 1865 and is recognized as a leader in publishing Catholic high school religion textbooks, parish resources, and books on prayer and spirituality. Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the Congregation of Holy Cross, United States Province of Priests and Brothers.
Following a successful pilot project last fall, Ave Maria Press is pleased to announce the next edition of Ave Explores—an initiative aimed at helping everyday Catholics better live their faith.
Catholic author and speaker Katie Prejean McGrady is the project manager for Ave Explores. The next month-long installment launching this fall will focus on the role of the Virgin Mary in the life of the Catholic Church. Prejean McGrady, award-winning author of Follow and Room 24, spearheaded a similar project surrounding the Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment in 2018 that was geared toward youth ministry leaders.
Ave Explores: Mary will include articles, videos, podcasts, social media exclusives, surprising facts, and resources for classrooms and parishes. Signup is free at avemariapress.com.
“So many people feel faith is something you do only on Sunday when you attend Mass. Ave Explores will help you see your faith as something you can live every day,” Prejean McGrady said.
Experts will provide insight, ideas, and practical resources to help Catholics better understand the continued importance of Christ’s mother not only in the Church but also in their own lives. “We’re going to look at how Mary is a model of discipleship and an example of how to be in intimate relationship with the Lord. We will examine how Mary is our companion, our supporter, and a guide for families in how to live a faithful life,” Prejean McGrady said.
Other issues include:
how Mary can influence our prayer practice;
Mary as a model for our families;
celebrating Marian feast days; and
ways to teach non-Catholics about why Mary is important for all of us.
Karey Circosta, associate publisher and vice president of sales and marketing at Ave Maria Press, emphasized that Ave Explores is free to anyone who wants to receive the material via email and on Ave Maria Press’s website and social media. “Ave’s commitment to the Church goes beyond publishing high school textbooks, ministry resources, and books on prayer and spirituality,” she said. “We also want to provide online content on important issues in the Church that offers spiritual enrichment and practical resources to help all Catholics grow in their faith.”
Circosta said that Mary is a perfect topic for the new Ave Explores because Our Lady of Sorrows is the patroness of the Congregation of Holy Cross, of which Ave Maria Press is an apostolate.
“We are pleased to be working with Katie Prejean McGrady on this initiative. She brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and contacts within the Church that will make this project beneficial to all,” Circosta said.
Sign Up Here for Ave Explores
Ave Maria Press was founded by Fr. Edward Sorin, CSC, in 1865 and is recognized as a leader in publishing Catholic high school religion textbooks, parish resources, and books on prayer and spirituality. Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the Congregation of Holy Cross, United States Province of Priests and Brothers.
Ave Maria Press authors and designers earned ten awards—including three first-place honors—in the annual book awards sponsored by the Catholic Press Association.
Joyce Rupp won first place in spirituality/soft cover books for Boundless Compassion, which earned a second-place award last month from the Association of Catholic Publishers. Rupp also took second place in collections of prayers for Anchors for the Soul from CPA.
Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO, placed first in memoir for In Praise of the Useless Life, which also earned second place for cover design. Samantha Watson created the cover for Ave.
The Catholic Hipster Handbook, edited by Tommy Tighe, won first place in the “backlist beauty” category.
Ave graphic designer Brianna Dombo won two awards—an honorable mention for design and production for the mother-daughter journal Side by Side by Lori and Ava Ubowski. Dombo also earned an honorable mention for the cover design of Gratefulness by Susan Muto.
Gratefulness won second place in ACP’s inspirational books category last month.
Other winners from Ave Maria Press included:
Timothy P. O’Malley, second place in the family life category for Off the Hook
Emily Wilson Hussem, honorable mention in books for teens and young adults for Go Bravely
Justin McClain, honorable mention in collections of prayers for Called to Pray
Meanwhile, CatholicMom.com, a ministry of Holy Cross Family Ministries—an apostolate of the Congregation of Holy Cross—won second place for best blog at the 2019 Gabriel Awards, which were also given out this week during the Catholic Media Conference.
Family Theater Productions, an apostolate of the Congregation of Holy Cross, won first place for a teen-specific television documentary of more than sixty minutes for Catholic Central episodes The Mass, Catholic Dating, and Life After Life. The organization also won second place for best internet video of between four and ten minutes for Catholic Central’s The Mass.
Book awards were announced Friday night at the Catholic Media Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Gabriel Awards were handed out Thursday night. To see the complete list of book winners, check out the CPA website.
Ave Maria Press is pleased to announce that three authors have won Excellence in Publishing Awards from the Association of Catholic Publishers.
Katie Prejean McGrady won first place in the teen books category for Follow: Your Lifelong Adventure with Jesus. In it she shares sometimes embarrassing, often humorous, and always inspiring stories about how she came to know and love Jesus and shows readers can, too, through prayer, scripture, sacraments, and service.
Bestselling author Joyce Rupp received a second-place award for Boundless Compassion: Creating a Way of Life in spirituality books. She guides readers to discover compassion from science, medicine, theology, spirituality, sociology, and psychology. She also encourages readers to explore personal and professional expressions of compassion, and to re-energize their ability to offer loving kindness to those around them.
In the inspirational category, Susan Muto earned second place for Gratefulness: The Habit of a Grace-Filled Life. The executive director of the Epiphany Association, she reminds readers that gratefulness is a gift from God and reveals that grateful living is not another new fad but has been the way of saints and Christian mystics for centuries.
“We are very excited for Katie, Joyce, and Susan,” said Karey Circosta, Ave’s associate publisher and vice president of sales and marketing. “Each of their books has an important message that is much needed in today’s world.”
“We are also proud of all of the authors who were named ACP award finalists,” Circosta said.
The Association of Catholic Publishers is a membership organization of Catholic publishers.
Lou Holtz is a College Football Hall of Fame coach who led the University of Notre Dame to a national championship in 1988. Holtz is also a sought-after motivational speaker and author of several books, including A Teen’s Game Plan for Life and the recently released Three Rules for Living a Good Life.
The legendary coach recently talked with Ave’s Bob Wieneke, a former ND football writer for The South Bend Tribune, about his newest book and his hopes for helping younger generations.
Ave Maria Press: You wrote in the introduction that you were not going to preach in this book, instead telling readers what you believe. Why was it important to write the book this way?
Lou Holtz: “When you tell people what to do, you’re giving them advice. There’s a big difference between opinion and advice. When coaches call me, I give them my opinion. Opinion is my thought—this is what I believe, this is why I believe it. I can only tell you what my experience was and what my thoughts are. I’m not going to give you advice. I just want to make sure they understand this is my opinion but it’s their life. They can do what they want.”
Ave: What is the satisfaction of authoring a book like this and helping people?
Holtz: “The only things that are going to change between where you are today and where you’re going to be five years from now are the books that you read, the people you meet, and the dreams you dream. Books can have a strong influence. They had a strong influence on me growing up. You try to take advantage of the experiences you’ve had. I don’t write about something I’ve read about or heard about. I write or talk about things that I believe, things that have happened, and experiences I’ve had.
“I think that the most important thing in that book is that’s life’s a matter of choices. Whoever you are, good or bad, is going to be because of the choices you make. Wherever you are, good or bad, the kind of choices you make, those three rules will help you always make good choices. You’ll never need a fourth.”
Ave: Is there anybody in particular you’ve really felt you’ve made a difference with?
Holtz: “So many letters from former players. I never felt I coached football. If felt I coached life. The same things that make you a good player are the same things that’ll make you a good father or a good husband. I get a lot of letters from various people. I made a speech not long ago and mentioned something about my wife’s health. (I got a letter from a woman saying) the speech was impactful and simple and powerful and it changed her life. She had a young woman who worked for her who had cystic fibrosis (which Holtz’s wife, Beth, is also faced with). She had 25 percent lung capacity, an infection in her lungs which could not be cured. They found a doctor in Seattle and the young woman now has 80 percent function in her lungs, the infection is gone, and she hikes and camps and things like that. In the letter the lady said ‘you’ve done so much for me I wanted to do this for you and share this with you.’
“God is the one who influences it. My job is to write the book and God’s job is to see if there is somebody who will use the book for the good of it. But the fact that the book is sold predominantly by word of mouth speaks volumes for it, not about me.”
Ave: You intersperse your faith throughout the book. How important is it for you to deliver that message?
Holtz: “I don’t know how people function without faith. You grew up having that faith and belief and you get away from home and go to college and start questioning if there is a God. When you start looking at the makeup of a human being, how can you tell me all this happened by chance? When you look at the fact that eleven of the twelve apostles died as martyrs, you don’t die for a lie.”
Ave: In the book you talk about the importance of growing rather than maintaining. What was it like to realize that lesson and grow from it?
Holtz: “When I was at the University of Notre Dame, we had tremendous success with that program, but you reach a point, no matter what you do, when it doesn’t seem to be good enough. You finish second in the country and everybody calls you an idiot. So you get to a point where you’re thinking, well, you know, let’s not change anything. Let’s just maintain what we have. Let’s keep being one of the best in the country each and every year. This is a pretty good life.
“When I left Notre Dame I thought I was tired of coaching. But I was not tired of coaching. What I was tired of was maintaining. I still missed the relationships with the players, the competition, things like that. The only reason I went back into coaching was because the AD at South Carolina convinced me that the program was in very, very poor shape. The challenge was going back to correct it. I tell people no matter your age, you have to have something you want to accomplish, what gets you up every day.”
“That’s the thing with my wife – trying to give her goals, a purpose, and something to achieve. It doesn’t have to be big lofty things—just little things, little goals. Let’s see if we can walk a half-mile today. Yesterday we did a quarter of a mile. Let’s see how soon we can get to a half-mile. That’s all that is.”
Ave: Anything else?
Holtz: “I hope that this book will enable people to avoid the mistakes that I made when I got out of college, give them the benefit of what I experienced after college. I wish I’d known how simple making good choices is and how important it is. Making good choices is not trying to impress somebody else or be somebody you aren’t.”
Ave Maria Press is excited to announce that thirteen Ave authors are finalists for fourteen book awards in eight categories from the Association of Catholic Publishers. This is the most nominations Ave authors have received for ACP awards.
Bestselling author Joyce Rupp is a finalist in two categories: Anchors for the Soul in prayer books and Boundless Compassion in spirituality books. Christine Valters Paintner’s The Soul’s Slow Ripening joins Boundless Compassion as a finalist in the spirituality category.
According to the ACP, spirituality books are largely narrative and structured along a specific theme. Prayer books center on formal or informal prayer.
Ave authors swept the teen books category, with Breakthrough by Fr. Rob Galea, Follow by Katie Prejean McGrady, and Go Bravely by Emily Wilson Hussem receiving.
Other nominees and their categories include:
General Interest: In Praise of the Useless Life by Br. Paul Quenon, OSCO; The Grace of Enough by Haley Stewart; What I Am Living For, edited by Jon M. Sweeney; and Winter of the Heart by Paula D’Arcy. General interest includes books on Church history, collections of essays by theologians, or important Catholic thinkers.
Inspirational: Gratefulness by Susan Muto. Inspirational books focus on devotional, spiritual, and meditation books, and books on saints, holy people, and stories related to people living their faith.
Resources for Ministry: What Matters Most by Leonard J. DeLorenzo. Nominees include books that are not a part of ministry program that serve as a faith formation tools in parish ministry.
Scripture: Psalm Basics for Catholics by John Bergsma. In this category, books can be scholarly treatment of particular books or collections of books of the Bible.
Spanish: La Iglesia by Hosffman Ospino. Books can be from any category but published in Spanish for the US market.
The Association of Catholic Publishers is a membership organization of Catholic publishers.
Joined by Grace, Ave Maria Press’s marriage preparation program, has been approved to be part of the “Twogether in Texas” Healthy Marriage Program initiative.
Texas offers engaged couples a $60 discount on their marriage license if they participate in an approved marriage preparation course or attend premarital relationship counseling or classes.
Offering couples the tools they need for life after their wedding day, Joined by Grace shows how the seven sacraments can help build marriages that are rooted in Christ by teaching couples to accept and be fully present to one another, give themselves completely, and serve and forgive each other.
Published by Ave Maria Press—the publisher of the bestselling Together for Life and a leader in marriage ministry for almost 50 years—written by marriage experts John and Teri Bosio, and produced by the Emmy-winning Spirit Juice Studios, Joined by Grace provides parish leaders, mentor couples, and engaged couples the most comprehensive, innovative, and up-to-date marriage preparation program for Catholic parishes today and the first to emphasize the connection between marriage and the other six sacraments.
If you are interested in learning more about Joined by Grace, contact Erin Pierce, Ave’s parish and curriculum marketing specialist, at epierce@nd.edu or at 800-282-1865, ext. 223.
NOTRE DAME, Ind.—Together for Life, the bestselling and most trusted source for wedding planning in the Catholic Church, has surpassed 10 million copies sold.
Now in its sixth edition, TFL includes all the tools engaged couples use when meeting with a priest, deacon, or lay parish minister to plan their weddings and prepare for living the sacrament of marriage. It is used to plan about 80 percent of Catholic weddings in the United States.
It was written by Msgr. Joseph Champlin (1930-2008) and first published in 1970. Rev. Peter Jarrett, CSC, added catechetical content to a later edition and helped update it to include the revised liturgical texts of the third edition of the Roman Missal. TFL was last updated in 2016 to include all of the necessary texts from The Order of Celebrating Matrimony.
“Msgr. Joseph Champlin’s gift to Ave Maria Press is a continued blessing to us and indeed to the Church, to the Congregation of Holy Cross, and of course to the married couples who have used the book to prepare not only for their wedding but for their marriage,” said Publisher Thomas Grady. “We don’t take this legacy for granted.”
Together for Life will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in 2020. The material in TFL is supported by TogetherforLifeOnline.com. The booklet is also available in Spanish.
Ave Maria Press was founded by Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., in 1865 and is recognized as a leader in publishing Catholic high school religion textbooks, ministry resources, and books on prayer and spirituality. Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the Congregation of Holy Cross, United States Province of Priests and Brothers.
