Margaret M. Russell became editor of The Catholic Free Press under Bishop Daniel P. Reilly on Jan. 4, 1999. Bishop Reilly said at the time that her “professional competence and experience as a newspaper woman, combined with her faith life ... should make her a very successful editor of The Catholic Free Press.”
More than 25 years later, many attest that he was right. Mrs. Russell officially retired as executive editor of The Catholic Free Press on March 31 – Easter Sunday.
She said it was a fitting time to retire, as Easter symbolizes new life.
Bishop McManus stated, “Marge Russell has been a competent and valued editor of our diocesan paper, The Catholic Free Press. I believe that our diocesan paper is one of the most respected Catholic publications in New England. Marge has a deep love for her Catholic faith and the Catholic Church that has contributed to presenting Catholic news, international, national and diocesan, in a well-balanced and intelligent way. I pray that she and her husband, Jerry, will enjoy their well-deserved retirement.”
While she mentioned the symbolism of Easter, some coworkers pointed to a different holiday - her retirement must be an April Fool’s Day prank, they joked. Those same coworkers at The Catholic Free Press expressed their gratitude to Mrs. Russell as a grace-filled, patient, humble leader, skilled journalist and editor and sincere Catholic.
Raymond L. Delisle, director of communications for the Worcester Diocese said, “It has been a privilege to have worked with Marge for these past 25 years. Her dedication and professionalism were matched only by her commitment to helping us spread the Good News throughout the Diocese of Worcester through responsible journalism. We will miss her guidance and support which have kept us focused over these many years and wish her all the best in her well-earned retirement.”
Mrs. Russell was born in New Britain, Connecticut. She spent time there and in Florida, before she came to Massachusetts for college.
Mrs. Russell said, with a laugh, that after she graduated from Anna Maria College in 1974 she applied for a job at The Catholic Free Press but was denied for being unqualified.
Her news career began as a news director at WICN-FM public radio in Worcester from 1973 to 1974. She was a reporter for the Webster Times, a weekly newspaper, from 1982 to 1984 before moving to the Telegram and Gazette. There she worked in several capacities, becoming assistant news editor in 1993.
Technology and Catholic Media
The biggest changes for the newspaper in the last 25 years, according to Mrs. Russell, are the advances in technology for the way news is disseminated and the forms of “technical processing.”
A website, social media accounts and mass email distribution are a few additions that The Catholic Free Press added under the leadership of Mrs. Russell to keep up with the digital age, all while maintaining the physical weekly newspaper.
The Catholic Free Press is now one of two diocesan papers in the nation published every week of the year. Mrs. Russell claimed that 25 years ago, most, if not all dioceses had newspapers.
The ways newspapers were edited, produced and printed began to change too.
“It was all groundbreaking,” Mrs. Russell said.
“We were able, even with a small staff, to keep up with the technology. It was something we all had to learn from nothing.”
When The Catholic Free Press was located at 51 Elm St. in Worcester, there were shelves of software, according to Mrs. Russell; “now it is on the cloud.”
Still, The Catholic Free Press had to get the news to the population of people who are not on the internet.
“As the newspaper industry was collapsing, we still provided something that they could hold,” she said. “The people who support the Church are the older generation and to leave them behind is just not what we should do.”
She is most proud of having been able to “keep a vibrant newspaper active with local news as our focus,” she said.
“The CFP has maintained [that] commitment ... Many diocesan papers have turned into monthly magazines or online only. ... You cannot get elsewhere what the bishop is saying or what is happening down the street. ... People want to know what is going on in their own community.”
Even with technological changes and advances, Mrs. Russell said she “was convinced that the paper was important and necessary to reach the people with the truths of our faith," she said.
"And I literally fought for it. Thankfully, Bishop McManus also is a believer in the importance of a newspaper as a way to communicate. ... I used to say we needed a daily paper and now we have the means to reach people daily through the internet.”
She said she started seeing a change in journalism about ten years ago when many journalists started to interject their opinion into the news. The Catholic Free Press, Mrs. Russell attested, has always been staffed by professional journalists. Many came from secular papers, some in the middle of their careers, others at the end.
Catholic media is important to Mrs. Russell and for the public.
However, it comes with a challenge – finances – and Mrs. Russell fought hard and found creative ways to keep the newspaper alive.
Catholic media, she says, has a distinct responsibility and ability to put the Church’s message into the “hands of the people” by synthesizing complex information (like Church documents) and making it accurate and accessible to the public. If the Church’s messages are solely reported on by people who do not always understand the faith, it “can be dangerous” and “the message gets garbled,” she continued.
“For Catholic media, we [know] that people are expecting us to tell the news with this perspective. In the secular media, you don’t know what perspective you are getting,” she said. Catholics have different opinions, but it is the job of Catholic media to find out what the church teaches and make it understood, she said.
“I think that’s why Bishop McManus has been such a supporter of Catholic media,” Mrs. Russell said. It provides an opportunity to communicate with Catholics and it “clarifys things that the secular media often gets so wrong. ... Our diocesan bishops have been defenders of the teachings. That’s our responsibility – clarifying [the teachings] when the world misconstrues them.”
Journalists are trained to go to the source “and if Catholic newspapers cannot be the trusted source, we are in trouble,” she said.
The good news and the bad news
Mrs. Russell said that for the 50th anniversary of The Catholic Free Press, the staff looked at past publications and found repeated subject matter such as ordination of women and, beginning in the 1970s, abortion.
“The message is the same, the Church is a constant,” Mrs. Russell said. “Leadership has an obligation to make it constant.”
A lot has happened in 25 years in the news and in Catholic news - locally, nationally, and around the world. To name a few things: the Worcester Cold Storage fire of 1999; the Great Jubilee Year (with Confirmation 2000 and Eucharist 2000); changes of bishops and popes, including Bishop McManus’ arrival and the the historic resignation of Pope Benedict XVI; World Youth days; World Meeting of Families; wars; deaths; local laws and legislation; ordinations; local church closures and parish mergers; and changes in diocesan schools, departments and parish life.
She also noted the demographic influx of new nationalities other than French and Irish such as Vietnamese, Brazilians, Hispanics and Africans, as well as an increase of vocations in the diocese.
Two events especially stand out to Mrs. Russell, the Church’s sex abuse scandal that broke in 2002 and the Covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020.
She described the sex abuse scandal as unprecedented, faith testing and disturbing.
“We lost a lot of faith filled Catholics. Each case was horrible. Each time something new was revealed or talked about, everybody was suspect and everybody was sad that this could happen,” she said.
As a journalist, she said she had to put aside emotions and report the facts.
“[We] tried to talk to the accused, but nobody would talk,” said Mrs. Russell.
“You had to have an awareness of fact” and what was not a fact, she said.
“Too many [cases] were fact. I think some [Catholics] looked for a reason to leave [the Church] but through it all many, many people were strengthened, and our Church supported victims. As a journalist, I was sad that we couldn’t report on the good things that the Church was doing for the people who were victimized because everything was so confidential,” said Mrs. Russell.
“The Church was crucified by the media. The Church [became] a target because these are men of God. What people forgot was that they are men, they are human, and the devil was having a field day. It was a tough time and I think the Church is still recovering from it.”
Speaking of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mrs. Russell called this time shocking because she never thought she would “see the day when the government would close the churches.”
“In my 25 years, that was big hit number two for the Church. It didn’t stop people from worshiping, but it was jarring. We never should have done that.”
She recalled the day that her parish, St. Joseph in Charlton, had its first outdoor Mass and people were lined up for communion.
“I remember tears running down my face. We missed this; we didn’t have this. We take our faith for granted until something disturbs it.”
Mrs. Russell said that the stories of people living their faith daily, are the stories that make The Catholic Free Press the most powerful. She cited ordinary happenings, journeys to the priesthood and of people who come to the Church through RCIA. These stories make you ask, “Why are they coming?” she said.
For Mrs. Russell, her why is “the power of God” in her family and personal life.
“There is no doubt in my mind that God exists, and we are here to share him and his love with other people.” She recounted the chaos of the pandemic and the peace she felt during it as well as when she was hospitalized, and her family thought she was going to die. The thought didn’t cross her mind. She was at peace, she said.
“Faith is a gift ... You have to accept the gift. ... As long as we are here doing God’s work, he is going to make it work. You have to be open to things.”
To sum up the last 25 years, Mrs. Russell says they have ultimately been joyful.
“I saw a lot of people who are happy and have this glow about them, I said ‘I want to be like that.’ I hope that the presence of God in my life comes out. It’s been a joyful 25 years - besides the heartaches and hair pulling,” she said.
Mrs. Russell said she plans to spend her retirement “working on [her] eternal life” and will get back into a routine of going to Eucharistic adoration.
She also plans on “being the best wife, mother of five children and grandmother of 11 grandchildren that I can be. And being the best daughter to my 93-year-old mother.”
During the interview Mrs. Russell’s phone rang multiple times until she finally picked up. It was her 5-year-old grandson asking if she and her husband, Gerard, were going to visit him that day. And once the interview was finished, off she went.