Vatican City, Jul 9, 2017 / 09:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During his 22 years as spokesman for St. John Paul II, Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls became somewhat of a legend in the Vatican – not only for his keen professional abilities and insight into the Pope’s mind, but also for his genuine kindness and deep spiritual life.
In a word, most who knew the late Spanish layman, who died earlier this week, have referred to him as a “gentleman” who was elegant, professional, kind and incredibly savvy.
Fr. John Wauck, a longtime friend of Navarro-Valls, described him as “an old-school gentleman and a consummate professional – capable, discreet, committed, loyal.”
Likewise, Greg Burke, current Director of the Holy See Press Office, said after announcing news of Navarro’s passing on Twitter that “Joaquin Navarro embodied what Ernest Hemingway defined as courage: grace under pressure.”
Burke said that he had met Navarro-Valls while working as a correspondent for Time Magazine the same year that the publication had named St. John Paul II “Man of the Year.”
In dealing with the Pope’s spokesman, Burke said “I expected to find a man of faith, but I found a man of faith who was also a first class professional” that was already well known and respected by his peers in the communications world.
“I didn’t always agree with Navarro, but he always behaved like a Christian gentlemen – and those can be hard to find these days,” Burke said.
Navarro-Valls was born in Cartagena, Spain in 1936. He studied medicine at the Universities in Granada and Barcelona, and worked as a professional psychiatrist and teaching medicine before obtaining degrees in journalism and communications.
He joined Opus Dei after meeting its founder St. Josemaria Escriva, continuing to collaborate with the founder in Rome, where he moved in 1970.
In Rome he was a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC and was twice elected president of the Rome-based Foreign Press Association in Italy.
He was the first lay journalist to hold the position of Director of the Vatican Press Office, which he was appointed to by Pope St. John Paul II in 1984. He served through the Pope’s death and two years into the pontificate of Benedict XVI before retiring in 2006.
After, he served as president of the advisory board of the Opus Dei-affiliated Campus Biomedical University in Rome until his death.
In his tenure at the Vatican Press Office spanning more than two decades, Navarro-Valls helped to modernize Vatican communications, especially as technology advanced. As Burke said, “he lived through the fax to the age of the internet.”
In 1992, he used $2 million to equip the press office with up-to-date technology and to modernize the facilities. He also streamlined the distribution of materials by making archives, documents and the Pope’s activities accessible online.
He died in Rome July 5 surrounded by fellow members of Opus Dei after battling terminal cancer. His funeral was held Thursday, July 6 at 11a.m. at the basilica of Sant’Eugenio, and was celebrated by the Vicar General of Opus Dei, Bishop Mariano Fazio.
Mario Biasetti, a journalist under the last five popes and a friend and colleague of Navarro-Valls, said he was a professional journalist, and it showed in everything he did.
Even when a colleague or a journalist would ask him a tough question, “it didn’t faze him,” Biasetti said. “He would tell you exactly what happened, but he would do it with a smile.”
“Joachin Navarro was a very well thought of man all-around. He had no difficulty to speak with anybody, whether officially or not officially.”
Biasetti traveled on many papal trips with John Paul II, and Navarro was always there and always by his side, he said. He was also always willing to pitch in and “always came through” for journalists with whatever they needed.
For Burke, one of the key things that stood out about Navarro-Valls is that he was someone who would work “shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of us,” who “knew the world” and was good with languages.
Burke noted that before coming to the Vatican, Navarro worked as a correspondent, “and his colleagues from around the globe clearly recognized his merits, electing him President of the Stampa Estera in Rome.”
“I remember watching Navarro closely during the U.N. Population Conference in Cairo – one of the best examples of what Pope Francis calls ideological colonization. It was fascinating to see someone who was defending the faith, but he wasn’t on the defensive. He was leading the fight.”
Asked about what, if any, advice he had given Burke on doing the job, the spokesman said the advice he got “was more personal than professional, such as ‘don’t neglect your interior life, and make sure you pray – you’ll need it in this job.’”
This attention to the spiritual life is something that was also obvious to others who worked with Navarro. In Biasetti’s words, the Spaniard “was a journalist, yes, but he was also a churchman.”
Fr. Wauck, a professor of the Institutional Church Communications faculty at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome and a fellow member of Opus Dei, recalled that this spiritual dynamic was evident even in Navarro’s work.
The priest said that when he thinks of Navarro, the first thing that comes to mind is “the conversion of the Time magazine reporter Wilton Wynn,” a well-known old-time reporter in the Middle East and Rome during John Paul II’s pontificate.
“Naturally, it was the vibrant Christian example of the Pope that attracted Wilton to the faith, but his long friendship with Navarro-Valls played a key part as well,” Wauck said, adding that Navarro-Valls “maintained an affectionate concern for Wilton’s spiritual well-being for the rest of his life.”
Another memory the priest recalled is “a small act of kindness” that took place over the summer some 15 years ago.
Fr. Wauck said that he had mentioned, in passing, in front of Navarro, that he had broken his swimming goggles. “The next day, I found a new pair on my desk, and they were much better than the ones I’d broken.”
Fr. Federico Lombardi, Navarro-Valls’ immediate successor as Director of the Holy See Press Office, also reflected on his relationship with his late predecessor, calling to mind Navarro’s character and impact on Vatican communications.
Lombardi recalled meeting Navarro after coming to Rome in 1991 to take on the role as Director of Programming for Vatican Radio.
After meeting and working alongside the Spaniard, particularly when the Pope traveled abroad, it immediately became clear that he was “a stable and important component” of the papal entourage, “but also likeable, friendly and cordial,” Lombardi said.
“Naturally I already knew him for his fame as a brilliant and competent ‘spokesman’ for the Pope,” he said, noting that the official title for someone in Navarro’s position is “Director of the Holy See Press Office.”
However, in the case of Navarro-Valls, spokesman “was an entirely appropriate name.”
Even if this wasn’t the official description of his duty – which was rather “Director of the Press Office” – it must be said that in his case it was an entirely appropriate name given the close relationship he had with John Paul II.
According to Lombardi, it was Navarro himself who often stressed that it was “absolutely necessary to have – and to indeed have – a direct relationship with the Pope, in order to know his thinking and line of thought with surety and clarity, and to be able to present himself to the world, to the Press Office and to public opinion as an authoritative interpreter of that thought, and not just hearsay.”
Throughout Navarro’s lengthy tenure working in the Vatican, there was absolutely “no doubt” that “he was very close to the Pope, so close that he must be considered one of the most important figures of that extraordinary pontificate.”
This, Lombardi said, is “not only because of his evident public visibility, but also for his role as intervention and advice. Certainly John Paul II had great confidence in him and held his service in high esteem.”
Burke, who is Lombardi’s successor as Director of the Holy See Press Office, referred to this relationship when he announced Navarro’s passing, posting a photo of him standing next to John Paul II with a big smile.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”tl” dir=”ltr”>Joaquin Navarro, 1936-2017.<br>Keep Smiling. <a href=”https://t.co/VCqL4GH5sS”>pic.twitter.com/VCqL4GH5sS</a></p>— Greg Burke (@GregBurkeRome) <a href=”https://twitter.com/GregBurkeRome/status/882672100091322370″>July 5, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
“I tweeted out a photo of Navarro-Valls and John Paul II smiling together, saying ‘Navarro, keep smiling.’ But I actually took that quote from John Paul II,” he said.
It was after a meeting between the Pope and the editors of Time Magazine, Burke explained. Navarro was standing off to the side a little, but smiling, happy with how things had gone and Pope St. John Paul II, noticing, said to him in English: “keep smiling.”
“You could tell that they had a very, very good relationship,” he said.
When it came to Navarro’s professional abilities, Lombardi said that at U.N. conferences the Spaniard would end up playing a primary and even diplomatic role, thanks to his “experience and communicative ability.”
“His intelligence, elegance and relational abilities were prominent. To that is added a great knowledge of languages and a true genius in presenting news and information content in a brilliant, attractive and concise way,” Lombardi said.
These are all gifts that made Navarro “an ideal person as a point of reference in the Vatican for the international information providers, but also for relations” with people in the public, communications and political spheres.
As both a layman and a consecrated member of Opus Dei, Navarro could be counted on as a competent and respected professional, but also as someone “whose dedication and faithful love of the Church could really be counted on, for the effective availability of both time and heart.”
For Lombardi, the lengthy duration of Navarro’s service as Director of the Press Office, his authoritativeness, efficiency and the quality of his work make his tenure “an age that will likely remain unique in the history of the Press Office and of Vatican communications.”
“Certainly, the dimension of communications and public relations in the immense pontificate of John Paul II cannot in any way be independent of Dr. Navarro’s work and personality,” he said. “It was an invaluable service to the Church.”
Lombardi voiced his gratitude to Navarro, specifically for the “courtesy and attention” he showed during the time they worked together.
“I always considered him a teacher in the way of carrying out his service and I never would have imagined to be called to succeed him,” Lombardi said, adding that his predecessor was “totally inimitable.”
“In the context of a different pontificate I tried to interpret and carry out the task assigned to me as best as I knew how, but preserving, for what was possible, his precious legacy,” he said.
Lombardi and Navarro remained friends even after the latter stepped down. For Lombardi, his predecessor was always “an example of a discreet, true and deep spiritual life, fully integrated with his work, a model of dedication to the service of the Pope and the Church, a teacher in communications.”
“Even for me – as I already said, but I willingly repeat – he was inimitable.”
[…]
A vacuous document issued by an apostate Vatican. Who would have ever thought that possible.
Earth to Francis: The Church is poised to move on from you and your ilk.
The 1970 missal of Pope Paul VI refers to priests as Presiders. The watering down of our faith started many decades ago.
Our Lady of Lasalette said that Rome would lose the faith. I used to wonder what the embodiment of that statement would look like – I wonder no more. One can no longer hold the conviction that those in the higher echelon of the church of Rome are making their decisions to advance the faith. Everything we see coming out of the papacy now seems to be delivering the church to the “spirit” of the world. One who is still attending the NO Mass needs to prepare now – it will become another Petrie dish of “experimentation”. Confusion is an inevitability; the identity crisis will deepen and disillusion will result in another exodus from the chaos. It will all play out in the Mass. Seek out a Latin Mass. Attend. In God’s mercy, it is your lifeboat as the Barque of Peter is intentionally guided into the rocky shoreline.
Thank you,George, well put. The barque of Peter is taking on water and the next Pope (may God bless him) will need to patch the holes and make major corrections and face the waves head on. Many may be lost over the rail, but the ship will not go down and will reach its port safely. The storm may be raging now but the son is still shining brightly overhead! 🙂James
I agree, very well put, George, even superlative.
Hope I’m not being erroneous and uncharitable but I have to wonder whether this whole synodal movement is not just a smoke screen for the Lavender Mafia’s not-so-hidden agenda to change the Church’s moral teaching.
Not only does the alleged sensus fidelium of the flip-chart synodal thing lack the missing 99% of the laity, but (and as Weigel clearly explains) it wanders not only from the faithful laity, but also from faithful members of the apostolic succession of the present and, lo, of the past two millennia–the Magisterium thing.
Sensus fidelium: “the supernatural appreciation of faith on the part of the whole people, when, from the bishops [!] to the last of the faithful, they manifest a universal consent in matters of faith and morals.”
The sad thing is it doesn’t end with this unfulfilling document. The synod itself will be a disaster.
Is the Holy Spirit calling us , in exposing what we think we are lacking in , to look around- October related to Fatima and the Miracle of the Sun – of our Mother as Queen of universe . The Synod as a call to learn from each other too and would it be good to discern what helps our Muslim brethren to be diligant in fasting and also showing such reverence in using the name of their prophet – ? His mercy through the many who were converted forcibly, to include the blessing – ‘Peace be upon..’ – His Peace to be set free from spirits of errors and vindictiveness ..
Mariam -intervening as at the Wedding at Cana to keep the Covenant to an extent… Would it not be good if we Christians can use the occasion to allow our Mother to help us too, to draw the waters , to help form the New Wine of rejoicing in The Lord, in what He can do along with The Mother- in looking at our debts and what we do not have – marital stability , gratitude for life and purity …and allow the Holy Spirit to work even silently to see what break throughs can be as a miracle – as what has been asked for by Holy Father .
Peace !
Why on earth are you referencing Islam? Do we not have the Gospel? Sorry muslims may fast very expertly and defend their fellow usually with threat and violence. No thanks if Jesus Christ is not enough of a role model for us then we are truly lost.
Glad that you asked , having forgottten to mention the occasion when the Holy Father had called for fasting till 3 P.M , on the occasion of the Syrian war – seems like a good adaptation instead of the day time fasting as advocated in Islam ; a people who do not accept the Passion of The Lord , thus owing Him less gratitude than us – reason for less graces too in forgiving , thus the violence yet as a group remarkable in their fidelity to fasting ..and is same a gauge as to whether we have become lukewarm – worthy of being spat out, from ‘deep loathing ‘ – words of 9th day of Divine Mercy Novena – https://www.thedivinemercy.org/message/devotions/novena/ninthday
Mercy !
One would think that after all the battles, mainly losing, that the mainline Protestant churches have gone through with their “modernizing” theology, Rome would have learned something useful about what not to do. Alas, that seems not the case.
The continued barrage, like this piece and many others here in CWR and in many conservative and most radical traditionalist Catholic media platforms, aimed at anything of and by Pope Francis is expected and understandable. But this hyteria about the IL of the coming Synod on Synodality is simply misplaced and overdone. The description terms usually lobbed by the enemies of Pope Francis questioning his orthodoxy is shining through here: ambiguous, confusing, unclear, dubious, etc. Come on. It is only a working document still up for discussion during the synod itself. It is not yet final. This is not a teaching document. It is confused writeups like this that appear to blur the line between what is not final from final about a teaching document that muddle the discussion and make the ordinary magisterium of Pope Francis confusing.
I will pray for you. That’s all that can be said after what the Church has suffered with this pontificate.
“Hysteria”? In what way has any piece here at CWR, including this piece, been hysterical?
“Come on. It is only a working document still up for discussion…”
That’s just a tad bit naive, with all due respect. Ten years into this pontificate, the approach taken to the various synods is quite obvious. The main actors are well-known and their ideological hobby horses are mostly in public. The DCS and IL documents are quite dreadful in terms of thought, writing, construction, rhetoric, theology, etc., etc. Can something good come out of the October Synod? Yes, absolutely. But not by following the rhetoric, through, and implications of these documents. It’s going to require bishops to dial down to root causes, agendas, assumptions, and to demand their actually be some Catholic substance to the month-long proceedings in Rome.
Agreed. If the Church really is Pope Francis’ “field hospital,” October 2023 is probably the time for a life-saving amputation of the gangrene. So, yes, “something good [can still] come out of the echo-chamber Synod on Synodality”…
As for the “gangrene,” in less than 27,000 words, is it “ecclesial transgenderism”?
…the subliminal/explicit notion, both, that what the Church IS can be displaced by what the Church DOES. Councils and synods are what the Church does. (Likewise, the displacement of sound moral theology by a focus group plebiscite.) In the 4th century, Arius would have debased the nature of God; in the 21st century, too much of “aggregated, compiled and synthesized” synodality–as now practiced–debases the nature of the Church and the nature of man.
So, now, how to unscramble the omelette?
I believe it’s true Carl, “main actors are well-known and their ideological hobby horses are mostly in public” – over ten years, I say it has been coming forth over the last 3 decades. It can’t be attributed to 1 individual so they have been saying during that whole period “it’s the Holy Spirit”. Even today, June 29 2023, you hear the same mantra, “the protagonist is always the Holy Spirit”.
So what is happening is they have been collating through some duration preceding the onset of the “synod on synodality” actual announcement, the content of it, some already expressed and some latent that had to find its formula. Because, these are what I have heard and seen already right where I live -all of it.
In context, headlining it as, that they “don’t have an agenda”, is not the face or heart or inspiration of the priesthood in Jesus Christ.
A Pope who has dismissed the entire received tradition of Catholic thought as museum pieces for the mentally ill on multiple occasions, who has insisted that truth is fungible because God Himself is capable of changing His mind about what is right and wrong or true and false, and frequently does, is not any sort of bedrock of orthodoxy, and those who notice are suffering from something other than pointless hysteria.
It seems to me that the goal of the Synod on Synodality is to drive as many people out of the Church as possible. As evidence, the poster child for the Synodal way is the Church in Germany. The following link is to The Pillar article which provides the numbers of people who have left the German church over the past 10 years. Pay close attention to the first graph:
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/german-catholics-left-church-in-record
One advantage of being an historian and having read the history of the popes, is perspective and not to be to concerned about how the current Holy Father is living out his vocation. There was one pope in 10th century Rome whose powerful mother engineered his election at the age of 19. He decided he wanted to get married and sold the papacy to his uncle like, as one historian put, “like box of old shoes.” The papacy survived. One very important positive in this whole business is the modernist influences and its sad consequences are there for all to see. This too shall pass. We need to pray for the poor souls who are either deceiving or being deceived and be aware of our limited understanding of this situation. Jesus we trust in You.
I respect George Weigel, but he seems to have missed what is said in no. 38 of the Instrumentum about what is needed to recognize the voice of the Lord:
“The more each participant has been nourished by meditation on the Word and the Sacraments, growing in familiarity with the Lord, the more he or she will be able to recognise the sound of His voice (cf. Jn 10:14.27), assisted also by the accompaniment of the Magisterium and theology. Likewise, the more intentionally and carefully participants attend to the voice of the Spirit the more they will grow in a shared sense of mission.”
Being nourished by the Word of God and the sacraments and being assited by the Magisterium and theology seem to be be quite traditional Catholic means of discernement.
Yes this sounds very catholic and traditional, the problem is with the rest of the document. Would you sign a contract after reading it and saying, well the majority of the contract is very onerous and unjust but the last paragraph seems ok. Error and ambiguity in the faith must be rejected.
‘Our oneness is in our wounds ‘ – words of the Holy Father – wounds as hardness of hearts that make it difficult to recognize sacredness of human lives and thus often tempted to focus on the negatives alone, depriving us of the grace to be united in the Sacred Heart to praise togther , converting the occasions when the wine ran out to be one of prasing our Lord with our Mother , for every drop of light and every heart beat , every thought in oneness with that of His – as compassion for the suffering and gratitude for beauty and goodness in and around to also taste sweetness of forgiveness and mercy …..
The theme of fasting – O.T talks about how the sins of the laity afflicted the priesthood ; there is no dearth of same in our times .
Along with the steps taken for Eucharistic revival, many of the local churches can take steps on their own – dividing up the parish by zip codes as ‘family units ‘ for the unifying step of fasting days chosen/ assigned to each through out the year – specific causes , such as to prevent and end wars – both internal and external ,on occasions of scandal/ discords, to free the addicted including to food / media etc :.
Custom of making charitable donation when difficult to fast also a worthy adoption .
Lay persons – Knights etc: coordinating same can have benefits .
Let us invite our Mother with more zeal – to make things move ‘before time’ – to let the Light of The Spirit rise, to rejoice in walking with the Holy Family as Octobers draw near .
Have heard lots of musing about what a useless and vacuous document it is.
Have heard no musing about how they intend to use it.
‘ The Holy Father noted that the new Prefect has long been valued for his theological charisma in his posts as dean of the Faculty of Theology of Buenos Aires, president of the Argentinean Society of Theology, president of the Faith and Culture Commission of the Argentinean Episcopate, rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, where he said, he encouraged a healthy integration of knowledge. ‘
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-07/pope-letter-new-prefect-dicastery-doctrine-faith-fernandez.html
‘ In his Address to the Delegation, Pope Francis highlighted the values of unity and peace. He expressed his joy at the outcome of the Plenary Session of the Joint International Commission for Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which resulted in a document on Synodality and Primacy in the Second Millenium and Today.
“It was important”, he said, “to have engaged in a joint reading of the way in which the relationship between synodality and primacy developed in East and West during the second millennium.”
Today, he continued, “we are called to seek together a modality of exercising the primacy that, within the context of synodality, is at the service of the Church’s communion on the universal level”. ‘
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-06/full-unity-is-gift-of-the-spirit-pope-tells-orthodox-delegation.html
‘ Only then, he continued, “did Peter arrive at the spiritual maturity that brought him, by grace, to so clear a profession of faith.”
Peter, the Pope said, “was to learn everything day by day, as a disciple, a follower of Jesus, walking in his footsteps.” ‘
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-06/pope-francis-mass-solemnity-peter-paul-follow-proclaim-pallia.html
‘ Pascal, the Portuguese Cardinal said, is one such beacon, because he “brings everything together”: science and faith, philosophy and mathematics, spirituality and a practical mindset. ‘
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-06/pope-blaise-pascal-anniversary-letter.html