Navarro-Valls

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - July 21, 2006

On July 11th, Pope Benedict acceded to Joaquin Navarro-Valls' "oft-expressed readiness" to retire from the position of the director of the Holy See Press Office and de facto papal spokesman.

Pope John Paul II in 1984 gave this Spanish layman the mandate and resources to bring the Vatican's press relations into the communications age. In addition to a thorough modernization of the offices of the Sala Stampa, Navarro and his Polish boss thoroughly changed the way the Holy See handled the news. Prior to Navarro's appointment, the traditional Vatican approach was, basically, the less said about something, the better. Navarro brought a whole new openness to media relations. He saw his task as not just responding to queries — sometimes curious, sometimes hostile —posed by reporters from various world news outlets, but to inform the world, with positive enthusiasm, of all that the Church was doing in service of God and mankind. He proactively wanted to take the bushel basket off the Church's good works and let the light of them shine for the whole world to see. His press strategy is the one consciously adopted by this newspaper, as can be seen in the way we try to cover news stories, as well as features like the Person of the Week.

Navarro was also an icon of a new type of Church leader. He was not a priest or religious, but a thoroughly formed layman. He was a specialist in internal medicine, a psychiatrist, and a journalist. As a lay celibate member of Opus Dei, he took all the same courses in philosophy, theology, Scripture and canon law that priests do. All that training proved providential and useful when, after a stint as Vatican and eastern Mediterranean correspondent for a Spanish daily, he was tapped by John Paul II. Navarro was supremely capable of translating the dense thoughts of papal encyclicals into journalistic sound-bytes intelligible to the modern world. He was deft and factual in relaying medical information about an often-ill pope, especially during the later years. And his psychiatric background, he often joked, was great preparation for dealing with members of the Vatican press corps.

He was more than a "Renaissance man," but a thoroughly 21st century lay Catholic, whose example will remain both archetypal and inspirational.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.