David Willey, a BBC correspondent whose career in Rome spanned more than 50 years and five papacies, died July 11 in Italy at the age of 93.
From being a student taking in the pomp of Pope Pius XII carried in a ceremonial throne to traveling the world with St. John Paul II to writing about the changes brought by Pope Francis, Willey saw “a complete revolution so that people saw the pope much more as a personality rather than in a hierarchical sense,” the journalist told EWTN News at his home in February.
Catholic background
David Douglas Willey was born in High Wycombe, in the county of Buckinghamshire, northwest of London, in December 1932. He grew up Catholic in nearby Marlow.
Willey’s first experience of Rome was a visit as a student, when he witnessed Pope Pius XII being carried through crowds in a gestatorial chair. “For me, the Vatican, St. Peter’s in Rome, was a spectacle, it was almost operatic,” he noted.
After studying law and modern languages at Cambridge, he moved to Rome as a trainee for Reuters.
He then left for stints in Algeria as a freelancer and subsequently East Africa as a correspondent for BBC.
