James V. Grimaldi

Executive Editor James Grimaldi reflects a journalist's work in 2025, in the aftermath of horrendous video of Charlie Kirk's murder, and a school shooting that hit close to home for National Catholic Reporter staff.

NCR reporter John Allen and managing editor Pamela Schaeffer wrote a 2001 article on internal church reports saying some Catholic clergy were exploiting their authority to gain sexual favors from religious women.

Compare the dystopian episode unfolding in D.C. today with a day in the same city in 2015, when Pope Francis had lunch with homeless people and reminded us, "The Son of God came into this world as a homeless person."

In October 1968, a top story in the National Catholic Reporter was the trial and conviction of the Catonsville Nine. Revisit NCR's coverage of these Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War.

Partnerships include working with The Guardian, KFF Health News, Mother Jones, Indian Country Today, Black Catholic Messenger and others. 

National Catholic Reporter delivers world-class journalism that shines a light on the most important issues of the day. Many of those stories emerge from Washington, D.C., where NCR has had a presence for decades.

In August 1972, then-President Richard Nixon campaigned hard for the Catholic vote, and NCR covered it from its newly opened Washington bureau. The story was prescient; Nixon's 1972 election was a turning point.

With a new Vatican correspondent and a huge stack of awards to propel us forward, you can expect NCR will continue to change, grow and improve, says executive editor James V. Grimaldi. 

In 2003, one of the 20th century's most famous Catholic writers reviewed a blockbuster novel that later became a blockbuster movie, The Da Vinci Code. The writer of that book review for NCR was Fr. Andrew Greeley.

The challenges for the Catholic Church in Chicago, where Robert Prevost grew up, are a microcosm of the gargantuan problems facing the worldwide Catholic Church that the new Pope Leo XIV must address.

The new pontiff is former Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, a Chicago-born Augustinian friar who previously headed the influential Vatican Dicastery for Bishops. 

"Francis was my pope for less than two days," said a new Catholic visiting from the U.S. "I wish he'd stayed longer, because I kind of liked Pope Francis." But he was eager to see the new pope introduced to the world.

Late pontiff's legacy is a conclave flashpoint. Will the cardinal electors continue down a path blazed by the first Latin American pope? Or will they pull back from Pope Francis' initiative known as synodality?

U.S. President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy briefly just prior to the funeral of Pope Francis, who spent a lifetime as a cleric working to build bridges. 

Hundreds of thousands of mourners — monarchs and presidents, cardinals and sisters, Jubilee pilgrims and tourists — turned out to mourn the charismatic leader of the Catholic Church.

He rose to power despite church officials’ knowledge of sexual-abuse accusations against him. 

In 1963, Jesuit Fr. John Courtney Murray gave a speech to journalists that became National Catholic Reporter's manifesto when the newspaper debuted a year later. It remains our guiding force today.

Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national in the U.S. on a student visa, was detained outside his home in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, on March 17 by Department of Homeland Security agents, according to his attorneys.

NCR executive editor James V. Grimaldi came up with a Guinness lentil stew made with the famous Irish stout. He thinks that seems right for the weekend. And if you're in the D.C. area, he has a March 15 party invite for you.