March 22, 2025

Director of vocations for Hartford talks heartbreak, comeback at Lenten series

REGIONAL
Story and photos by Carolee McGrath

WESTFIELD – Father Anthony Federico, the director of Vocations and Seminarians for the Archdiocese of Hartford, was the keynote speaker for Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament’s Lenten Speaker Series, Wednesday, March 19. Father Federico, who started his career off as a sports reporter and producer at ESPN, spoke about his quick career climb, a career-ending headline and a comeback, that only God could come up with.

“God writes straight with crooked lines,” Father Federico told IObserve as he described his journey.

Father Federico was on top of the world coming out of college and becoming a priest was not on the agenda. A sports enthusiast from New Haven, and oldest of five children, he had played hockey, baseball, and tennis growing he up. He had just graduated from Providence College, and landed his dream job at ESPN. He knew he was going to have to work his way up the ladder, and in his early 20’s he climbed quickly. He went from delivering video clips to producers, to becoming an overnight producer and reporter. He watched multiple games for his job, broke them down play by play and put his articles up online. It was 2012. Facebook and Twitter were the prominent social media platforms, with Instagram gaining traction. He was on the fast track in the digital sports world, until one overnight shift.

“I was abruptly fired from my job at ESPN when I was falsely accused of writing a racial slur,” Father Federico explained.

At issue was the headline: “Chink in the Armor: Jeremy Lin’s 9 Turnovers Cost Knicks in Streak-stopping Loss to Hornets.” The phrase “chink in the armor” refers to an area of vulnerability, or a weak spot in one’s armor. But broken down can be taken as a racial slur, which Father Federico not only apologized for, but then paid for dearly. He was fired, but the anchor who also used the phrase, was not. He was suspended. Father Federico described how he was humiliated on social media, by the press and received hate mail and even death threats from around the world. He said he was even the subject of a “Saturday Night Live” skit.

When Jeremy Lin was asked in a press conference about the incident he told CNN, “I don’t think it was on purpose,” Lin said. “At the same time, they’ve apologized. I don’t care anymore.”

In fact, Lin reached out to Father Federico to meet him in New York City a month later.

“We had precisely one hour to have lunch. We had an honest conversation. He told me he felt terrible by the way the media was treating me. We shared our common Christian faith. He was gracious to me. In an age where our culture and people are anything but, he was truly compassionate to me. Jeremy Lin is a good guy,” he said.

But that didn’t matter to the media and the damage had been done. He said he was in a dark place, but God turned the light on. A firm in Stamford, Conn., reached out to him and offered him a job in sports consulting for an AI firm. He said at the new job, he had hour lunch breaks, which is much different than a shift in a news room. He kept passing a church. On third day, he walked in. He started attending daily Mass. And little by little he said he went from being an “assembly line” Catholic, where you just go through the motions, to truly understanding and embracing the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. And after that, everything changed.

“C.S. Lewis says God speaks to us in our conscience, whispers to us in our pleasures but then shouts to us in our pain. So, it’s in pain and suffering and difficulty where the Lord is closest to us. So really in my life, in that terrible incident, I realized how God was so close to me,” he said.

Father Federico was ordained a priest in 2019.

“From that experience of brokenness, humiliation and embarrassment, the Lord revealed himself to me in a real way and showed me how much he loved me and how perfect his plan was for my life. I’ve been ordained a priest five-and-a half years and I’ve never been happier,” he said.

Vocations are flourishing the Archdiocese of Hartford under his direction. Five men entered the seminary in 2024, and 11 in 2025, the largest number in decades. Father Federico hosts the “Practically Catholic” podcast and is the author of the book, “Joe B,” a story that draws from the Book of Job, and looks at why bad things happen to good people. “Joe B” can be found on Amazon.

To watch Father Federico’s talk in its entirety, go to https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0DWmGhaMCz0

A video version of this story will be featured on an upcoming edition of “Real to Reel,” which airs Saturday evenings at 7 p.m. on WWLP-22NEWS.