BBC Vatican correspondent David Willey has died at the age of 93

David Willey, a prominent figure in British journalism and a leading voice on the Vatican for over half a century, died of heart failure in Italy, the country where he had chosen to live.

He covered five pontificates, lived through wars, and witnessed the birth of a united Europe. David Willey, the BBC's foreign correspondent for over fifty years, has died at the age of 93. His death was announced on Thursday.

Willey began his career as an intern at the Reuters news agency. In 1957, he was present in the large, frescoed hall of the Capitoline Hill for the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the founding act of what would become the European Union. "I was there in that immense room adorned with scenes of ancient Roman battles, when the six tailcoat-clad founders of the Europe of Six affixed their signatures," he would write fifty years later.

A freelance journalist in Algeria, then a BBC correspondent in East Africa from 1964, he later covered the Vietnam War and China after the communist revolution. But it was in Rome that his career truly took off. As a correspondent at the Vatican, he became one of the world's leading experts on the papacy, closely following the reigns of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis, among others. One of his most significant assignments remains the assassination attempt against John Paul II in 1981.

He published a book on Pope Francis, "The Promise of Francis: The man, the Pope, and the challenge of change," which he personally handed to the pontiff during a private audience in 2016. Last year, he also met with the newly elected Pope Leo, his fifth pope.

Willey worked well into old age. After the death of Pope Francis, he still delivered an analysis of the transformations of the Church under this pontificate, not without a touch of personal vertigo: "I suddenly realized with some shock that my own life now spans no less than eight successive papal reigns," he wrote.

Awarded the OBE for services to broadcast journalism, he leaves behind a generation of correspondents whom he mentored. "He was an incredible authority on the Vatican, having covered and traveled with five popes, and he was so generous, offering me his insights and encouragement when I started in Rome in 2019," said Mark Lowen, BBC correspondent and presenter.