The expulsion last month of Alejandro Bermúdez, founder of the Catholic News Agency (CNA), from the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV) alongside nine others, has drawn significant attention, particularly due to the unusual accusation of “abuse of the apostolate of journalism.” As the only journalist among those expelled, it is clear the charge was aimed directly at him. But this was not the only serious abuse that Bermúdez was found by the Vatican to have committed. For the first time, four of Bermúdez’s former employees are speaking out about his scandalous workplace behavior.
For those who have not been following this story, CNA under Bermúdez’s leadership has been embroiled in controversies over the years, ranging from false reporting to biased editorial practices. For example, in June 2021 CNA published an article falsely claiming that President Joe Biden was scheduled to meet with Pope Francis the following day. The meeting didn’t happen. Other reports have cast doubt on the integrity of CNA’s journalism, including when, as Simcha Fisher describes it, they ran “a story that devoted an astonishing eight paragraphs to the funding allegedly behind a story in The National Catholic Reporter, creating out of whole cloth the impression that journalist Jenn Morson was attacking Franciscan University at the behest of George Soros.”
Another story published during Bermúdez’s tenure claimed that Pope Francis criticized Fr. James Martin during an ad limina meeting, based on information provided by anonymous US bishops. Two bishops came forward to challenge the anonymous account and Fr. Martin later revealed that he received a voice message from Pope Francis stating that the story was false and assuring Martin of his support. The article remains on the CNA website, uncorrected.
In addition to these and many other cases of problematic journalism, Bermúdez’s treatment of his employees was a major factor in his expulsion. According to both his own statements and the accusations against him that have been made public, his behavior in the workplace was marked by a volatile temper and impatience towards others. Nevertheless, Bermúdez suggests that his expulsion was motivated more by ideology than his behavior.
Bermúdez defended himself in a 25-minute-long Spanish-language podcast (which was also posted in English on X) against charges that he was the “boss from hell” during his time as executive director of CNA and the Spanish-language outlet ACI Prensa, claiming that “the vast majority of those accusations come from Mrs. X,” a lone former CNA employee who requested anonymity in the investigation. Although Bermúdez admitted that he “at times … acted unfairly,” he insisted, “I have had many employees and co-workers in more than three decades as a journalist, the vast majority testify to my professional integrity.”
Some prominent voices in the Catholic world have publicly defended Bermúdez’s character and integrity, including the Archdiocese of Denver, which released a statement asserting that they were “shocked and saddened by the news of expulsions of members from the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, based on decades-old allegations in South America. … This news is inconsistent with our longstanding experience of the men who have served within the Archdiocese of Denver.” It added that Bermúdez “served faithfully and with distinction.”
Several of Bermúdez’s defenders, such as Archbishop Charles Chaput’s longtime aide Francis X. Maier and Boston-area veteran Catholic journalist Phil Lawler, have argued that his expulsion from the SCV was excessive. They assert that Bermúdez’s behavior, while abrasive, did not warrant the severe consequences he has faced. Maier, for example, taking to the journal First Things to defend Bermúdez — whom he calls “a man of great heart” and “evangelical zeal” — described Bermúdez’s dismissal as “unwarranted,” adding “Bermúdez seems guilty mainly of a hot temper and vigorously challenging the SCV’s critics.” In an August article for the same journal, Maier conceded Bermúdez’s “abrasive leadership style,” but argued that such behavior “warrants correction, not expulsion.” Speculating that the real reasons for the expulsion were ideological, Maier adds, “Bermúdez’s entire life … has been devoted to serving the Church and advancing her mission.”
Lawler echoed these sentiments in a column on the Catholic Culture website. He wrote, “A former employee charged that Bermúdez had criticized her harshly. That charge may be true. But if so, as Fran Maier points out, the offense calls for a mild rebuke, not for expulsion from an association to which he has dedicated his life.” Lawler also pointed out that many journalists, including himself, have displayed similar “character defects” to those of Bermúdez.
Such defenses, unfortunately, fail to recognize the serious harm that abusive and volatile managers can inflict on their employees, who often feel trapped and forced to endure abuse because they depend on their jobs to support themselves and their families. Escape from such toxic workplace environments typically requires finding a new job, which is difficult in the current Catholic media landscape. Maier and Lawler also show great insensitivity towards those who experienced Bermúdez’s management firsthand.
Recently, four former CNA employees — all of whom requested anonymity due to concerns about retribution — shared accounts of their experiences working under Bermúdez with WPI.[1] These journalists, who collectively worked for CNA for over two decades, describe an environment where verbal abuse, public humiliation, and unreasonable demands from Bermúdez were not uncommon. All four confirmed accounts of Bermúdez belittling his staff and berating them for minor mistakes on multiple occasions.
When asked about the claim that Bermúdez was a “boss from hell,” one former employee responded, “I don’t know of anyone who worked under him who would have said it was great working for him. I think the ‘boss from hell’ is his own language, but no one I know would disagree.” This former employee described his typical behavior in the newsroom, saying, “I don’t know if he yelled every day, but every day it was something: shouting, profanity, calling people stupid and incompetent.”
These employees added that Bermúdez’s aggressive behavior took place both in person (one of them said his screaming could be heard clearly from behind closed doors) and remotely — via phone, email, or direct message. Written communications from Bermúdez shown to WPI were rife with cursing, angry criticisms written in all caps, a heavy dose of exclamation points and question marks, and frequent misspellings. The messages were filled with hostile and demeaning language, including accusations of employee incompetence and stupidity. One former employee told me, “Profanity was a routine part of his vocabulary.”
Some of the employees noted that although Bermúdez’s outbursts were frequent and well-known, at times he could be generous and supportive. The former employees described him as having dramatic mood changes from day to day. One recounted, “He was either extremely affirming or extremely abusive.” Former employees recounted many days when Bermúdez would come into the office in a good mood, praising all the staff members. Sometimes, he would take the entire office to lunch.
Two of the former employees said the climate in the newsroom was better from 2017-2020, when JD Flynn and Ed Condon served CNA as editors. They both said they believed that Flynn and Condon helped shield or “buffer” the rest of the staff from his abusive outbursts. After they departed CNA at the end of 2020 to start the Pillar, however, Bermúdez was once again unleashed on the staff. One of the former employees said, “After JD and Ed left and Alejandro took over, it was like night and day. Suddenly it was as if I had no autonomy in my job and that I was at the whims of a maniac. I went from loving my job to dreading every workday.”
Former employees suggested that Bermúdez could be selective about his targets. One said, “I rarely saw Alejandro’s bad side, but I too saw him berate his subordinates with impulsive and intense hostility and foolishness.” Another added that they believed Bermúdez “was generally harder on women.”
All four former employees agreed that the severity of Bermúdez’s behavior towards his staff was extreme and abusive, and completely unacceptable in a Catholic workplace. One said, “At its worst, his behavior was so inexcusable, contemptible and self-destructive that it prompted me to think about leaving my job. His mean streak undermined the mission of CNA.”
Sadly, employees in Catholic institutions often have little recourse when faced with abusive bosses and toxic supervisors. Perhaps due to the Church’s top-down hierarchical structure, the concerns of employees of Catholic organizations — such as parishes, chanceries, schools, media outlets, and nonprofits — are seldom heard or rarely heeded. This applies especially to younger generations of Church workers, who typically have less job stability, lower pay, and fewer benefits than those who began their careers in Catholic bureaucracy before the explosion of the sex abuse crisis in 2002. For figures of that earlier generation — like Bermúdez, Maier, and Lawler — to treat abusive behavior as insignificant smacks of a sort of lay clericalism that poisons the Church at all levels. The sort of clericalism that Pope Francis says must be rooted out.
One of the former employees suggested that Catholic leaders who defended Bermúdez before the details of his behavior came out “should re-visit and correct their commentary. Everyone must be vigilant about mistreatment of employees at Catholic organizations. All the hard work of building up a Catholic organization means nothing if abusive management drives away young talent and attracts enablers.”
The four former employees recounted numerous attempts to report Bermúdez’s abusive behavior over the decade prior to his 2022 resignation. In addition to the statements by CNA employees to the Special Mission last year, his behavior was reported on at least two occasions to Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, who was appointed by the Vatican to investigate the SCV in 2016. His mistreatment of employees was also reported on at least one occasion to his fellow sodalit Fr. Daniel Cardó (who was later expelled along with Bermúdez). The former employees were also aware that Bermúdez’s behavior was reported to the human resources department at EWTN (which owns CNA) by multiple employees on multiple occasions over this timespan. To their knowledge, no corrective action was taken against Bermúdez during his tenure at CNA.
Although the charge of “abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism” has drawn attention, we should not ignore the role of Alejandro Bermúdez’s toxic leadership style in his expulsion from the SCV. The type of behavior that former CNA employees have described in unsettling detail has no place in any workplace, let alone a Catholic apostolate. The testimonies of Bermúdez’s former employees make it clear that toxic leadership has no place in Catholic workplaces. Church leaders have the responsibility to ensure that those who suffer from abusive bosses are heard, believed, and protected.
The Church’s mission should be to uphold the dignity of every person, especially within its own ranks. The treatment of employees within Catholic institutions is a reflection of the values those institutions claim to embody. Leaders who allow such abuse to persist, either through neglect or outright protection, share responsibility for the harm inflicted.
Note
[1] I confirmed that none of these four former employees was “Mrs. X.”
Image: YouTube screenshot.
Mike Lewis is the founding managing editor of Where Peter Is. He and Jeannie Gaffigan co-host Field Hospital, a U.S. Catholic podcast.
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