New editor appointed

CRISTINA ODONE (right), a 31-year-old Washington-based Catholic journalist, has been appointed the new editor of the Catholic Herald. She takes over from Peter Stanford, whose four-year spell as editor ends with this edition, Cristina Odone was a contributor to the Times and the Times Education Supplement before joining the Catholic Herald in 1985 as a reporter. She moved on In 1987 to the Times and then to Washington DC from where she continued to contribute to the Herald and other papers.
Born in Italy, Cristina spent her early childhood travelling around the world with her Swedish mother and Italian father, a World Bank official. Her secondary education was in England and she read history at Worcester College, Oxford, In recent years, as well as her journalism, she has worked with the Myelin Trust, a charity
set up by her father to fund research into a rare form of childhood disability suffered by her younger brother Lorenzo. The Odones' struggle to find a cure is being made into a film, Lorenzo's Oil, starring Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte.
After seven years with the Catholic Herald Peter Stanford announced his resignation in the March 13 edition of the paper. He is working on a biography of Lord Longford, is to present a series for Channel 4's religious department later this year and was recently named chairman of the disability charity ASPIRE.
Joanna Moorhead, the Catholic Herald's deputy editor for the past three years, will start on six months maternity leave at Easter.