My last day on this job

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 31, 2025

As the year 2025 comes to an end, so does my career as editor of Catholic World News. I am retiring from the daily-news business, effective January 1.

CWN was born during the height of the “dot.com” era. Dozens of online enterprises sprang up in the 1990s, made sensational claims, earned millions for their founders, and then disappeared without a trace, never having produced a saleable product. Thirty-odd years later, little CWN is still chugging along, providing reliable headline news coverage for thousands of readers every weekday.

But beginning this week, CWN will be chugging along without me. Thirty years is a long time to plow through news releases, write up stories, check sources, and read Vatican news releases every day. Although I still love my work, and feel the urge to keep writing, I also recognize a need to step away from the daily grind and work on my own projects, on my own schedule.

As I bow out, I owe a debt of gratitude to Jeff, Peter, and Thomas Mirus, who have brought CWN into the CatholicCulture family, furnished the support and the technical expertise necessary to make our work viable, and have now allowed me a graceful transition into a new line of work. I am also grateful to the many loyal readers of CatholicCulture for supporting the whole enterprise; I trust that support will continue.

Not going away

Although I will no longer be managing the daily headline coverage for CWN, I won’t disappear from the CatholicCulture site. My commentary will still appear regularly on the site, along with an occasional news-analysis piece. But readers who want the full Phil Lawler Experience should look to my Substack, where I will be posting more frequently—not only on the news of the Catholic Church, but also on politics, books, education, novels, beekeeping, baseball, quantum mechanics, the weather, and whatever other subjects tickle my fancy day to day.

In other words, I’m breaking away from the objective news stories, to indulge my urge to air my own opinions. Faithful readers can expect to see more signed work from me, not less, as I stroll into this “retirement.” Frankly, I expect to have more fun—and hope my readers will, too—as I spout off my opinions.

Not that I have been reticent about expressing myself in my CatholicCulture commentary. But the day-to-day work of CWN, providing news coverage that is reliable and not opinionated, demands a different sort of approach. I take pride in the fact that CWN has established a reputation for timely and accurate coverage. Our headlines appear promptly—not several days after the events. Our stories provide a sober appraisal of the facts, neither ignoring grave scandals nor exaggerating them. I have been particularly gratified to hear from readers who, when they see a sensational report on another outlet, will check on CWN to see if it is accurate. I am confident that the CWN team will continue to provide that sober news coverage; I’ll be relying on it myself!

Facts matter. Accuracy in reporting is tremendously valuable, and the tendency toward click-bait has badly damaged our public discourse. Reporting—digging out facts—requires patience and perseverance: qualities in short supply in a world where the news cycle is measured in seconds. But accuracy also requires proper context. To be honest, for some time now I have left the reporting to others, and focused on putting the headline stories in context. After forty years on the beat, I think I have the perspective needed to distinguish between minor tremors and major earthquakes, between petty disputes and major controversies.

That’s the perspective I’ll continue to provide for readers here on the CatholicCulture site, and for those who join the conversation on Substack. Let others—including CWN—tell you what the news is. I’ll tell you what it means.