Palmo was raised in a large Italian family in South Philadelphia. He is a great-nephew of the onetime papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
He still lives in South Philadelphia.
Palmo"s blog "Whispers in the Loggia" is focused primarily on Catholic ecclesiastical happenings in North America. In 2009 he broke the news of the appointments of archbishops to New York, Miami and Los Angeles well before traditional news outlets. Ann Rodgers, religion reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stated: "A great many of his sources are anonymous archbishops and bishops who know they can talk to him, and feed him stuff and they don"t have to worry about their names showing up." Palmo verifies all his reports with three sources before publishing.
Palmo was previously United States correspondent for the London-based Catholic weekly The Tablet, and he is a former columnist for the online magazine Busted Halo.
National Public Radio profiled Palmo, stating that his blog: "..has become a must-read for many Catholics — even some inside the Vatican." Archbishop Robert James Carlson of Saint Louis is quoted as saying he reads "Whispers in the Loggia" with some regularity. Palmo is frequently cited by major publications including United States of America Today, The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York Times.
He was interviewed by National Public Radio on February 27, 2013 about the papal conclave to replace retiring Pope Benedict XVI. In April 2011 he was named as one of two chairs of the Vatican’s first conference on the blogosphere/social media.
In 2010 Palmo received an honorary doctorate from the Aquinas Institute of Theology in Saint Louis, Missouri. Review Richard Peddicord, president of the Aquinas Institute stated: "Rocco has shown that someone with his background—a Christian commitment, but also his abilities and background in journalism—can use the blogosphere in a very powerful way in terms of communicating the message of the church." Aquinas has never awarded an honorary degree to a journalist, and the only other journalist who has given Aquinas" commencement address was Peter Steinfels of The New York Times in 1993.
In March 2012 Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap named Palmo a member of a new Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, the first body of its kind to be established in Philadelphia.
