<p>Rachel Zoll, who for 17 years as religion writer for The Associated Press endeared herself to colleagues, competitors and sources with her warm heart and world-class reporting skills, died Friday in Amherst, Massachusetts, after a three-year bout with brain cancer. She was 55.</p>
<p>Zoll covered religion in all its aspects, from the spiritual to the political, and her stories reached a global audience. But her influence was far greater than that. Other publications often followed her lead, and AP staffers around the world depended on her generosity and guidance.</p>
<p>“Rachel was one of the most universally beloved colleagues we had,” said AP’s managing editor, Brian Carovillano. “She was also one of the best reporters, on any beat. … She had a knack for finding the story or angle that no one else considered but is packed with insight and surprises.”</p>
<p>“Most importantly,” he added, “she was always the best kind of colleague, always available for help or consultation. … She always had time for everyone.”</p>
<p>Zoll was at the forefront of coverage of two papal transitions, the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, and tensions within many denominations over race, same-sex marriage and the role of women.</p>
<p>She often broke news, as in 2014, when she was the first to report Pope Francis’ appointment of Blase Cupich to become the new archbishop of Chicago.</p>
<p>But she also told stories in depth: a 2016 election-year piece examining how <a href="https://apnews.com/article/f24752f35bf642a881309131df5a7255">conservative Christians felt under siege</a> in a changing nation. A series about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/04/23/african-churches-discover-america-span-classbankheadevangelical-pastors-successful-in-nigeria-cast-their-attention-overseasspan/a8c46907-52c9-4184-b9d2-b6a978235a03/">Christian missionaries from Africa launching initiatives </a> in the United States. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cf6ec7c0876a4894b662481b49f0f0b4">A feature about two churches in Georgia </a> — one black, one white — trying to bridge build a connection by confronting racism.</p>
<p>Not all of her stories were so heavy. In 2005, she reported from Tullahoma, Tennessee, on a Bible study class called <a href="http://home.hiwaay.net/~thefanns/apjun99.htm">“Finding the Way Back to Mayberry” </a> developed by two men who believed watching “The Andy Griffith Show” could lead to spiritual enlightenment.</p>
<p>“Mayberry may be fictitious, but its lessons are not,” preacher Pat Allison told Zoll.</p>
<p>Her work was honored repeatedly by the Religion News Association; it gave her a Special Recognition Award in September 2018, saluting her work over the years and her collegiality.</p>
<p>“She was one of the great personalities in the profession –- or really anywhere,” said RNA contest chairman Jeff Diamant at the awards banquet. “This makes it really hard to get mad at Rachel Zoll, even when she beats you on a story in your hometown.”</p>
<p>Frank Baker, who was Zoll’s editor when she joined the AP’s Providence office in 1996, nominated her for the AP’s most prestigious in-house honor -– a Gramling Award, which she won in 2018 </p>
<p>“I’ve worked with countless outstanding journalists. None is better than Rachel,” wrote Baker, now AP’s news editor for California. “She never gets outworked. She never gets intimidated by a subject. And she never loses her sense of humor.”</p>
<p>Zoll, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and a master’s from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, worked in her hometown at The Salem (Mass.) Evening News before joining the AP in Boston in 1995.</p>
<p>She moved on to Providence for a short stay before being appointed correspondent in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1998. She returned to Providence as correspondent the next year, and became a New York-based religion writer in May 2001.</p>
<p>Laurie Goodstein, The New York Times’ religion writer from 1997 to 2019, said Zoll was revered by her competitors on the beat.</p>
<p>“Rachel mastered the art of interrogating powerful religious leaders and holding them to account without being confrontational or disrespectful,” said Goodstein, now the Times’ deputy international editor.</p>
<p>“She would go to the microphone at a press conference, face a panel of Catholic bishops peering down from a dais, and ask the pivotal question that cut right to the heart of the matter,” Goodstein said via email. “Then amidst the hubbub in the press room, she would hammer out a clear, even-handed, compelling story on the religious controversy of the day.”</p>
<p>One of Zoll’s frequent sources was the Rev. James Martin, a Catholic priest who is editor-at-large of the Jesuit publication America. He recalled her laughter, staccato-like and frequent.</p>
<p>“Rachel was not only an amazing reporter, who was dogged in her pursuit of a story, but a wonderful person: warm, smart, funny,” Martin told the AP. “Sometimes when she called me for a story, we spent more time laughing than talking about the story.”</p>
<p>Zoll became ill in January 2018 as she was helping negotiate a major expansion of AP’s religion coverage via a grant from the Lilly Endowment. A few weeks later, she was diagnosed with the incurable cancer glioblastoma.</p>
<p>Even after that diagnosis, her years of source-building and intricate preparation ensured that AP was first to receive the news of the death of renowned evangelist Billy Graham on Feb. 21, 2018.</p>
<p>Zoll was born in Salem, where her father, Samuel Zoll, served as city councilor and mayor before embarking on a judicial career that included 28 years as chief justice of the Massachusetts District Courts. He died in 2011. </p>
<p>She is survived by her mother, Marjorie Aronow Waldman; three older siblings and their spouses — Barry Zoll and his wife, Susan; Cheryl Zoll and Eric Sawyer, and Risa Zoll and Tim Williams; and five nieces.</p>
<p>Cheryl said her sister had other talents, beyond journalism — she was a gifted musician. Over the years, she played piano, French horn and trumpet.</p>
<p>She even joined an all-woman accordion orchestra — the Main Squeeze. In 2006, she recalled a performance at a New York venue when one band member took a sledgehammer to a squeezebox.</p>
<p>“There were times in the first year or so when I wanted to quit. I felt humiliated onstage,” she wrote. “But then I realized that no matter how many times we bombed, it was always great to step outside the dead-seriousness of adulthood and do something ridiculous like playing James Brown with 14 other accordionists while a friend smashed an instrument into pulp in front of a crowd.</p>
<p>“That night at Irving Plaza, I realized how lucky I am: I’m with the band.”</p>
