The Catholic Herald has been a vital voice in the Catholic community for five decades as it has chronicled the life of the local church.
Behind the headlines and deadlines, a dedicated staff has faced the challenges, savored the successes and embraced the faith. Several answered a higher calling trading the newsroom for the novitiate and the camera for the chalice.
These priests and sisters are a testament to how a shared mission in Catholic media can nurture a heart for religious service.
Father Paul Grankauskas, pastor of St. Bridget of Ireland Church in Berryville, was an intern at the Herald in the summer of 1991. He graduated from Marymount University in Arlington and returned to the Herald to work in circulation and finally moved into the newsroom.
He was out picking up photos from the printer and said that when he pulled back into the chancery parking lot, he felt a vocational call. “I pulled into a parking spot, and I just had this image in my head of myself as a priest, and something said, ‘That’s where you’re supposed to go.’ And I kind of sat there for a few minutes in the car like, ‘woah,’ ” he said.
He returned from one assignment with a photo of people on stage with their heads cut off and out of the frame. That ended up on the newsroom “Wall of Shame.” He was a good sport and became a great asset to the Herald in his writing and photography. But he traded all that in for a roman collar, thankfully. Read more HERE.
About three decades ago, the Herald began a feature to encourage Catholic high school students to hone their journalism skills and share school news. One of the correspondents was Stephanie Tracy, a student at Paul VI High School, then in Fairfax, around 1995-97. She later became a Herald summer intern between her junior and senior years of college, and about five years later, she returned again as editorial assistant.
“I think coming to work at the Herald as editorial assistant was a real godsend because I was looking to get out of the job I was in at the time. I was very disillusioned with the daily press and was looking for something that had more meaning to it,” she said.
Tracy said she remembers when I called her to talk about returning as a fulltime employee. “I thought, ‘Oh, thank God. It’s my ticket out of here.’ ” She remained from 2007 to 2009.
But something else was brewing in her mind.
“Being in an environment where faith was talked about, where a vocation was not a foreign concept, gave me some space to discern where I was headed,” she said. Former Herald Staff Writer Henrietta Gomes had left to join Sisters of Life as Sister Dominic Grace. “Those influences, the little things, reminded me it was ok to consider religious life.”
“The Herald was a coming home and a safe space for me to really discern,” Tracy said. From there she left to do public relations for the Redemptorists in Annapolis, where she was living at the time. “I didn’t want to leave the Herald, but I felt it was where I was supposed to go next,” she said.
Then the call to religious life was realized and in 2013 she entered the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and made her first profession in 2016. Sister Stephanie Gabriel, who made her perpetual profession in 2021, served in the diocese at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington 2019-22. She has been serving at St. James the Less in Savannah, Ga., and loves it.
She said the skills she learned as a journalist “working with different people, talking to them, pulling out their stories, helping them express and share their experiences, I missed that when I entered the convent. But those skills are so transferable to ministry,” she said. “I’ve been interviewing people for adult faith formation. Those are the same skills I used as a reporter. It’s a great way to use those skills in a different way than I’ve done in the past.”
In the early years of the Herald, there were more vocations. Former Advertising Manager Peg Albrecht recalls working with Annette Boccabello, a graphic artist. They would ride to the printing plant in Gaithersburg together and chat. One day, Albrecht told her that she “seemed like a person who has a vocation.” It must have struck a chord as Boccabello went to a retreat in Boston with the Daughters of St. Paul, known for their communications work. “Shortly after that she joined the order,” Albrecht said. “She found a place where she could use her artistic talents. It just came together for her.” Sadly, Sister Annette Margaret Boccabello died in 2012.
The Herald also had a vocation to marriage with former Staff Writer Clare MacDonnell meeting and marrying her coworker Brian Lazzuri, an ad sales rep. Six children and 25 years later, they make their home in her native Canada and continue to support their local Catholic community.
The newsroom proved to be fertile ground for vocations showing the profound ways Catholic media work can intertwine with personal faith journeys.
Augherton can be reached at [email protected].
