Phil Lawler on four decades of independent Catholic journalism

By Thomas V. Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Jan 27, 2026 | In The Catholic Culture Podcast

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Veteran Catholic journalist Phil Lawler recently retired as the editor of Catholic World News at CatholicCulture.org. Phil was the first lay editor of Boston’s archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot, but negative experiences trying to do real journalism while financially dependent on the Church hierarchy prompted him to move on to a career in independent Catholic journalism, with stints as editor of Crisis, Catholic World Report, and finally founding Catholic World News, which in 1995 was the first English-language Catholic news service operating on the internet. In the early 2000s, CWN merged with Catholic Culture.

Phil joins the podcast to look back on his journalistic career, the problems with Church-run news agencies, the value of financially independent Catholic journalism, the current state of Catholic media, and his reporting on the clerical abuse crisis for years before most people found out about it in 2002.

Links

Phil Lawler’s Substack https://pflawler.substack.com/

Theme music: “Franciscan Eyes”, written and performed by Thomas Mirus. Download the Catholic Culture Podcast soundtrack.