How a retired LA television executive became publisher of the National Catholic Reporter

LOS ANGELES — In his first column as publisher of the National Catholic Reporter, former television executive and journalist Joe Ferullo declared that the Roman Catholic Church is at a crossroads, pulled between two radically different visions for its future.

Writing in early December, Ferullo explained that a series of synods, or listening sessions, held in parishes around the world under the direction of Pope Francis had revealed a hunger among the faithful for a church that was more welcoming to its LGBTQ members and that allowed more opportunities for women to take on leadership roles.

And yet, in November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had elected conservatives to nearly every important leadership role — including the group’s new president, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who has served as archbishop for the military services since 2008. Experts who follow the church saw the election results as a pointed repudiation by the U.S. bishops of Pope Francis’ more inclusive vision.

“What path does the church take in the generations ahead? Does it expand the tent and reach out, or does it circle the wagons and close in?” Ferullo wrote. “It’s impossible to know where that path will lead by the end of 2024 — but these next two years could easily turn out to be the most decisive since Vatican II.”

As publisher of the 59-year-old National Catholic Reporter, where liberal voices have long held sway, Ferullo will have a front seat to the unfolding historic drama that could affect the church for years to come. And perhaps that explains why a guy three years into a comfortable retirement might decide to take on the anxiety and thrill of running the scrappy and beloved Catholic news organization.

“I thought about teaching,” he said. “But there’s not as much fun in that.”

He also believes that the future of the Catholic Church should be of interest not just to Catholics but to anyone who follows politics in America.

“Despite the fact that the church is shrinking in numbers in this country, it still has a lot of influence,” he said. “If you’re angry at Dobbs, then you’re angry at the group of Catholics who helped push that, including all those conservative Catholic Supreme Court justices,” he said, referring to the court case that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.

Ferullo, 65, is warm and wiry with dark, graying hair. During an interview at a Le Pain Quotidien a short drive from his Studio City home, he described himself as a lifelong practicing Catholic.

He grew up in the late 1960s in a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx, New York, where his family belonged to a parish that fully embraced the reforms of Vatican II. Latin Masses were replaced with folk Masses that inspired him to learn to play guitar. The nuns at his parochial school removed their traditional habits, and his sixth grade math teacher, Sister Maryann, occasionally taught the class Simon & Garfunkel songs instead of long division.

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