Former 'Intermountain Catholic' editor recalled as consummate journalist, faith-filled Catholic
SALT LAKE CITY — Barbara Stinson Lee, who for 20 years served as editor of the Intermountain Catholic, the newspaper for the Diocese of Salt Lake City, died Jan. 2. She was 68.
Her 27-year career at the newspaper began in 1986; she retired in 2013. For the last three years, she worked part time.
“Barbara touched people throughout the entire diocese,” said Father Martin Diaz, rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, during the Jan. 7 funeral Mass. “Cooperating with bishops, priests and deacons and religious men and women, Barbara generously gave of herself to build up the Church in the service of the Gospel, working to ensure that the work of the cathedral and our diocese would continue to prosper for many generations to come.”
This combination of journalism and faith was Lee’s hallmark. She began her career at the Intermountain Catholic by writing a column called “Church Mouse.” Later, as editor, her column was titled “Off the Record.” In addition to the column, she wrote news stories about everything from the 2007 Crandall Canyon Mine disaster in Huntington that killed six miners and three rescue workers to the joyous Las Posadas celebrated during Advent at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. One of her favorite assignments was reviewing the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City each summer.
Her talent was recognized statewide in 2006, when the Utah Press Association presented her with its highest individual recognition, the Master Editor Publisher Award. Of the 46 recipients of the award up to that time, she was one of only six women.
In an interview regarding the award, Lee said, “For the past 20 years, I have been blessed by talented people who have mentored me, gifted staff members who have supported me, and for 31 years a loving husband who has sacrificed greatly for the work I do. I can only try to give back to the diocese, the Intermountain Catholic and our readers, and the Utah Press Association some fraction of what I have received.”
In an email, Brian Allfrey, executive director of the Utah Press Association, said, “Barbara Lee is a pillar of the journalism community in Utah. In her 27 years at the Intermountain Catholic, she dedicated her life to ensure the journalistic and religious integrity of that wonderful publication. Everyone at UPA mourns Barbara’s passing, and our thoughts go out to her family, friends and community. We hope that her example of excellence and dedication will continue to shine.”
At the Salt Lake Tribune, lead religion writer Peggy Fletcher Stack recalled becoming acquainted with Lee in 1991. “She seemed to know everyone in Utah’s Catholic community — from bishops to priests to Carmelite nuns and Dominican brothers to college students and ethnic believers of every variety in the pews — and was generous in sharing her sources. She was a consummate professional and a thoughtful journalist. It was my pleasure to read her perspective on many stories, including the installation of Bishop George H. Niederauer and Bishop John C. Wester.”
In the Diocese of Salt Lake City, mission “is of paramount importance, because we are a mission diocese. It would be impossible to work for the diocese and not have the mission ingrained in your very soul,” Lee said in the 2006 interview, adding that the clergy, religious and laypeople in the diocese “all are extraordinary, and I want to tell their stories. … I’ve traveled to 16 or 17 foreign countries with the Intermountain Catholic, but Utah is always best because what we have here is the essence of the universality of the Church. People from all walks of life, people from all different countries, being one, just as they do it everywhere else, but they do it here together. We reflect a pilgrim church, we reflect a mission church, the early Christians, the first Apostles, the first disciples of Christ. That is why I do what I do.”
The person who wrote the story in which that quote was included was a young Intermountain Catholic staff member named Christopher Gray, who went on to be ordained a priest in 2013 and now is pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Park City.
Lee was an excellent mentor and allowed him to try things other supervisors likely would not have, Fr. Gray said in his homily at the funeral Mass.
Recalling that interview with Lee, he quoted from it extensively because it made such an impression on him, he said, adding, “The mission of the Church in every age is to proclaim Christ: Christ resurrected, Christ alive, Christ made real in living Christians,” and Barbara’s mission was to express the life of faith of the people of Utah.
“There was no one who was ‘too little’ for Barbara, no one who was ‘not enough’ for Barbara,” he said.
Lee was one of the first people to greet the Most Rev. John C. Wester when he arrived in Utah after his appointment in 2007 as ninth Bishop of Salt Lake City. Now Archbishop of Santa Fe, he still recalls after 13 years her gracious welcome as well as her ability to meet the challenge of running a diocesan newspaper and the way in which she told “stories that symbolized the life of Catholics in the Diocese of Salt Lake City.”
Lee had a deep love for the Church, a profound understanding of human nature and was a very competent journalist, the archbishop said, so “her main contribution to the paper was what she gave of herself and those three elements in particular.”
During her tenure as editor, Lee increased the newspaper’s coverage of the diocese’s ethnic communities.
“She walked with us all throughout the life of the parish,” said Father Dominic Thuy Dang Ha, pastor emeritus of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Kearns, which last year celebrated its 25th anniversary.
During most of that quarter century, “Barbara’s pen in God’s hand made known the unceasing, loving pastoral care from the Diocese of Salt Lake City in Utah to the Vietnamese Catholic migrant’s presence,” Fr. Ha said.
Lee represented the newspaper at every significant event at the parish during her time as editor; many of her photos are printed in the book commemorating the parish’s history. Fr. Ha said he is eternally grateful for her encouragement, friendship and lasting contribution to the parish, and he has fond memories of her friendship.
Lee was preceded in death by her parents and her sister Patsy Moss. She is survived by her husband, Jack; her brother, Frank Stinson of Tempe, Arizona; her sisters Elizabeth Stinson of Vancouver, Washington; Joanie Myszkowski (Joe) of Stoughton, Wisconsin; and Kelly Stinson Mullens (Jeff) of Boise, Idaho; and numerous extended family members.
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