Catholic newspaper editor steps down

The longtime editor of the nation's oldest Catholic newspaper has stepped down so he can spend more time tending to the needs of his home parish. Monsignor Peter Conley, who has been editor of the Archdiocese of Boston's weekly paper, The Pilot, for a decade, will stay on as executive editor, writing editorials two days a week and a monthly op-ed piece. Antonio Enrique, the former managing editor of La Vida Catolica, the Spanish Catholic monthly, took over from Conley Sept. 4. Conley, 63, was ordained in 1963, but his appointment as editor of The Pilot "opened up a whole new world" that required him to tackle contentious issues, from stem cell research and abortion to the "painfully tragic" cases of sexual abuse by clergy. The Boston native is pastor of St. Jude in Norfolk. "The parish is my future," he said.