Jim Accurso has joined the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis' communications office as media and external relations manager.
In the newly-created position, Accurso will assume many of the duties previously carried out by the former communications director, Dennis McGrath.
After ten years in this post, McGrath will become a part-time consultant to the archdiocese. His successor has yet to be named, according to a released statement from the archdiocese.
Accurso brings 11 years of archdiocesan and Catholic parish communications experience to his new job. He is a former assistant director of media relations for the Archdiocese of Chicago, and also served two Chicago-area Catholic parishes as marketing communications director and public relations coordinator.
Most recently, he worked as a media specialist for the 2010 Census in the Chicago Regional Census Center.
He holds a master's degree from Northwestern University in managerial communications and a bachelor's degree from Southern Illinois University–Carbondale in speech communications/public relations.
In 2011, Accurso and his wife, Theresa, relocated to St. Paul from Chicago's suburbs along with their two college-age children, Mary Katherine and James.
A longtime public relations consultant with more than 40 years of experience — within the U.S. and internationally — McGrath has joked that he was only supposed to be the archdiocese communications director temporarily, though it eventually became a full-time job, lasting nearly a decade.
He says the archdiocese will remain a client of McGrath-Buckley Communications, the consulting practice he co-founded with his wife, Betsy Buckley.
