A FORMER teacher, who once considered becoming a nun, has been appointed editor of the Catholic Herald.
Miss Deborah Jones, a leading liberal Roman Catholic, will begin her new job in October.
Miss Jones (48) is currently deputy editor of Priests anti People and is an adviser to the Bishops' Conference Committee for Theology.
She replaces Miss Christina Odone, who resigned from the paper in the spring after publishing a series of controversial articles.
Although Miss Jones did not apply for the editor's position, it is understood that Mr Otto Herschan, the chairman of the independent trust which owns the Herald, sought her because he wanted to ensure that the newspaper's coverage was uncontroversial.
Miss Odone offended many Catholics by publishing articles which criticised Queen Elizabeth's handling of the Prince of Wales's divorce and attacked the ecumenical record of the late Archbishop of Liverpool, the Most Rev Derek Worlock.
Miss Jones, who is single and from Liverpool, is highly regarded within the church.
She has written several texts on adult education, offering advice on converting to Catholicism, and is an ardent supporter of the modern church reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
Journalists at the Herald were "delighted" by the appointment and predicted that Miss Jones would be a "great editor".