The Pope and the Press

In late February, with Pope Francis critically ill in the hospital, CJR’s Sacha Biazzo spoke with members of the Vaticanisti, the Italian term for the press corps that covers the pope. In many ways, he learned, the beat is a strange one: as recently as the nineties, the Vatican press office would check how long female reporters’ skirts were, one journalist said; another—Christopher White, of the US-based National Catholic Reporter—noted that it’s sometimes still necessary to reach sources by sending physical letters, or even via fax. The Vatican, Biazzo noted, is both a state with a distinctive bureaucracy and also a spiritual center; Manuela Tulli, the Vatican correspondent for the Italian news agency ANSA (which Francis once quipped “knows what I’m doing before I do”), told him that those covering Francis “have to find the news within a homily, which is not exactly the kind of speech a head of state would give.” And yet, Tulli said, he “often sets the agenda on key issues.” That much was evident yesterday, on Easter Sunday, when Francis, now apparently convalescing following his illness, had an archbishop read out a message that expressed concern for the vulnerable, including migrants, before unexpectedly appearing on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to loud cheers. He also made headlines for meeting with US vice president J.D. Vance, a Catholic, whose stance on deportations he has openly repudiated.