Ljubljana - Družina, the Slovenian Catholic weekly, celebrates its 70th anniversary with a sizeable readership of some 100,000 people. The first issue of what translates as The Family came out on 7 May 1952.

The newspaper first came out as a religious biweekly of the Apostolic Administration for the region of Goriška, western Slovenia. In 1973, it switched to a weekly format.

According to the Slovenian Bishops' Conference, Družina was founded and first published by Apostolic Administrator Mihael Toroš. The paper's name was chosen by its first editor-in-chief Jože Premrov and it was to represent the Slovenian nation, which he saw as one big family.

Družina has always been close to people, Tone Rode, director of the publisher Družina, writes on the weekly's website; Under the Communist regime it was the voice of those who had no voice, but in 30 years of democracy and independence it represents the voice of reason, freedom and responsibility, justice, truth and dialogue.

Looking ahead, Rode would like the newspaper to retain its realistic view of the world and would never forget that its key asset is quality content that is relevant to its readers.

Družina has 60 employees and 300 contract staff. The weekly and its supplements have 100,000 readers, while as many visit the news web portal druzina.si and 270,000 visit its Christian lifestyle portal aleteia.si monthly. Its 14 magazines have 80,000 readers, as many as there are Družina's followers in social media.

Družina marked its anniversary on Friday with a lecture, mass and a get-together. The mass was celebrated at the Ljubljana Cathedral by Anton Jamnik, the auxiliary bishop of Ljubljana, who is in charge of the media at the Bishops' Conference.