David Willey - former BBC Vatican correspondent

McKay Interview

Wednesday, 6 July 2022 - 35 minutes

David Willey OBE, is a papal biographer and, formerly, BBC Correspondent to the Vatican since 1971.

He is the author of The Promise of Francis: The Man, The Pope And The Challenge Of Change (Simon & Schuster, 2015) which assesses the high expectations aroused by the election of the first pope from Latin America. His other books include: Italians (BBC Books, 1984) and God's Politician (Faber & Faber, and St Martin's Press, 1992), a critical biography of Pope John Paul II, whom he accompanied on more than 40 of his foreign journeys as a member of the Vatican press.

Michael picks up the conversation from nine years ago and talk about many things, including his Italian grandparents, the present crises in the Vatican, the difference that the first ever Jesuit Pope has made, the state of Pope Francis’s health, and the speculative prospect of three Popes in the Vatican at the same time, as Pope Emeritus Benedict lives, a mere 500 metres away, almost on the Pontiff’s doorstep