The team behind OSV News continues to grow, Editor-in-Chief Gretchen R. Crowe is pleased to announce, with the addition of two Catholic media powerhouses, Elizabeth Scalia and Maria Wiering, to the ranks of the news service.
Scalia comes to OSV News most recently from Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and the Word on Fire Institute, where she was editor-at-large; she will serve as Culture Editor, bringing a range of diverse, inspiring and informative voices to OSV News. Wiering joins OSV News fresh off a successful seven-year run as editor-in-chief of the award-winning The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. She will take on the role of Senior Writer, providing OSV News readers keen analysis, incisive background knowledge, and rich context to the issues Catholic journalism must explore today.
“Elizabeth and Maria bring a dynamite combination of journalistic talent and love of the Church that will make OSV News indispensable for our clients,” said Crowe. “Their participation in OSV News from the ground floor will bring to the fore the voices and the issues within the Church that everyone should be listening to and following.”
Before her time at Word on Fire, Elizabeth Scalia also served as editor-in-chief of Aleteia.org’s English edition for several award-winning years, during which time she and her team helped propel the spirituality-and-lifestyle centered magazine into the top tiers of Catholic online publishing. Prior to her work at Aleteia, Scalia was the founding managing editor of the Catholic portal at Patheos.com, where she helped to grow that channel into a major mover of digital traffic, featuring some of the most widely read and most popular bloggers and commentators in Catholic media.
At the Vatican’s invitation, Scalia was a featured presenter at the 2010 Vatican/Blogger Meet-up in Rome, and she was for several years a regular panelist on the news and issues program “In the Arena,” produced by the Diocese of Brooklyn.
Popularly known as “The Anchoress” for her well-regarded and widely read blog by that name, Elizabeth also penned the Catholic Media Association-honored regular column, “Ora pro nobis” for OSV’s The Catholic Answer magazine (no longer in print) and has authored a number of award-winning books including “Strange Gods: Unmasking the Idols in Everyday Life” (Ave Maria Press) and “Little Sins Mean a Lot: Kicking Our Bad Habits Before They Kick Us” (OSV).
Scalia has been a regular online contributor to First Things, and her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, CBSNews.com, the Catholic Herald (UK), The Guardian (UK), Our Sunday Visitor, Notre Dame’s “Church Life: A Journal for the New Evangelization,” Cultures and Faith, the Journal of the Pontifical Council for Culture, and many other publications.
A native New Yorker, Scalia is a Benedictine Oblate. She lives on Long Island with her husband, in the Diocese of Rockville Centre.
“My whole career has been the surprising work of grace, and over its course I have been lucky enough to work here and there with OSV, producing everything from pamphlets to articles, columns and books,” Scalia said. “Coming in now as a full-time member of the OSV News team feels like one more welcome challenge and one more unexpected gift. I am looking forward to working with Gretchen and the whole crew in this new venture.”
Maria Wiering has worked in the Catholic press for nearly 20 years, and is respected for the excellence of her in-depth news and feature writing. Prior to taking the helm of The Catholic Spirit, she worked as a reporter for the Catholic Review, the publication of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Wiering began her journalism career in the Twin Cities as a reporter and news coordinator for The Catholic Spirit. She also spent a year working as a press secretary on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
Wiering has won numerous Catholic Media Association awards, including the Gerard E. Sherry Award, which recognizes the best analysis/background/round-up news writing, most recently in 2022 for her work on the response to Pope Francis’ motu proprio regarding use of the pre-conciliar Latin Mass. This year, Wiering’s special reporting has included an in-depth look at American Indian residential schools’ history and their impact in Minnesota on Native Americans. Her freelance work has appeared in America magazine and Our Sunday Visitor.
Wiering recently completed a term on the Catholic Media Association’s board of directors and has served on several CMA committees.
Wiering holds a degree in Catholic Studies and a master’s in art history, both from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. She lives in St. Paul with her husband and three children.
“I’m thrilled to join the OSV News team and look forward to bringing high-quality journalism to our clients and readers,” Wiering said. “I am passionate about reporting on the issues, events and people shaping the Church, and through the Church, shaping the world. Excellent Catholic journalism is increasingly critical for the Church, and it is exciting to be part of a team so well positioned to meet the demand.”
OSV News will go live at CatholicNews.com at the start of 2023 to provide national and international news, analysis, editorials, commentary and features from a Catholic perspective every day.
OSV, the parent company of OSV News, was founded in 1912 by Father John Francis Noll. Its flagship publication, Our Sunday Visitor, has been published weekly for 110 years. Father Noll, who became bishop of what is now the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and was later named an honorary archbishop for his service to the Catholic media in the United States and internationally, was an early supporter of CNS and of the Catholic Press Association (now the Catholic Media Association). In the mid-20th century, OSV was instrumental in helping numerous dioceses establish their own newspapers, many of which were printed in OSV’s current Huntington, Indiana, headquarters.
