{"id":4379,"date":"2010-05-06T13:57:38","date_gmt":"2010-05-06T13:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/05\/call-him-dr-rocco.html"},"modified":"2010-05-06T13:57:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T13:57:38","slug":"call-him-dr-rocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/05\/call-him-dr-rocco.html","title":{"rendered":"Call him &#8220;Dr. Rocco&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/rocco625may6.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"rocco625may6.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/212\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/05\/rocco625may6-thumb-400x266-13433.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"266\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center;margin: 0 auto 20px\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/>\nLegendary blogger and <a href=\"http:\/\/netny.net\/currents\/\">&#8220;Currents&#8221;<\/a> contributor <a href=\"http:\/\/whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com\/\">Rocco Palmo<\/a> is used to covering the news. &nbsp;But now he&#8217;s actually making some. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>From the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stltoday.com\/stltoday\/news\/stories.nsf\/religion\/story\/FDCCFC5F1497E5878625771B000FAA20?OpenDocument\">St. Louis Post-Dispatch:<\/a> <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nRocco Palmo&#8217;s life has been infused with four major blessings &#8212; his large Italian family, journalism, baseball and the Roman Catholic church.<\/p>\n<p>All four will coalesce Friday as the 27-year-old blogger, who lives in and works from his parents&#8217; home in Philadelphia, receives an honorary doctorate from the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. His parents will be there as Palmo gives the commencement address to the seminary&#8217;s 77 graduates. He&#8217;ll also watch his beloved Phillies take on the Cardinals this week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rocco has shown that someone with his background &#8212; a Christian commitment, but also his abilities and background in journalism &#8212; can use the blogosphere in a very powerful way in terms of communicating the message of the church,&#8221; said the Rev. Richard Peddicord, president of the Aquinas Institute.<\/p>\n<p>Aquinas has never awarded an honorary degree to a journalist, and the only other journalist who has given Aquinas&#8217; commencement address was Peter Steinfels of The New York Times in 1993.<\/p>\n<p>In awarding Palmo an honorary doctorate, the 84-year-old Dominican seminary is making a statement about the changing relationship between journalism and the Catholic church. The award for Palmo&#8217;s work on his blog Whispers in the Loggia is also an expression of how American Catholic leaders hope to encourage a younger generation to engage their faith through news.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Palmo has done something no mainstream journalist has ever done &#8212; scooped announcements by the Vatican of new U.S. bishops or archbishops,&#8221; said Debra Mason, executive director of the Religion Newswriters Association. &#8220;That&#8217;s a formidable task and one that requires serious reporting skills.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stltoday.com\/stltoday\/news\/stories.nsf\/religion\/story\/FDCCFC5F1497E5878625771B000FAA20?OpenDocument\">Continue for more<\/a> on Rocco&#8217;s background.  And congratulations, Rock!<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legendary blogger and &#8220;Currents&#8221; contributor Rocco Palmo is used to covering the news. &nbsp;But now he&#8217;s actually making some. &nbsp;&nbsp; From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Rocco Palmo&#8217;s life has been infused with four major blessings &#8212; his large Italian family, journalism, baseball and the Roman Catholic church. All four will coalesce Friday as the 27-year-old&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-net"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Call him &quot;Dr. Rocco&quot; - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/05\/call-him-dr-rocco.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Call him &quot;Dr. Rocco&quot; - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Legendary blogger and &#8220;Currents&#8221; contributor Rocco Palmo is used to covering the news. &nbsp;But now he&#8217;s actually making some. &nbsp;&nbsp; From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Rocco Palmo&#8217;s life has been infused with four major blessings &#8212; his large Italian family, journalism, baseball and the Roman Catholic church. 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