Pope Saint Paul VI was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his death in 1978. Succeeding John XXIII, he continued the Second Vatican Council which he closed in 1965, implementing its numerous reforms, and fostered improved ecumenical relations with Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches, which resulted in many historic meetings and agreements. Montini served in the Holy See's Secretariat of State from 1922 to 1954. While in the Secretariat of State, Montini and Domenico Tardini were considered as the closest and most influential advisors of Pius XII, who in 1954 named him Archbishop of Milan, the largest Italian diocese. Montini later became the Secretary of the Italian Bishops' Conference. John XXIII elevated him to the College of Cardinals in 1958, and after the death of John XXIII, Montini was considered one of his most likely successors.
Pope Benedict XVI is a senior prelate of the Catholic Church who served as its head and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2005 until his resignation in 2013. Benedict's election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. Benedict chose to be known by the title "Pope Emeritus" upon his resignation.
Martin Bell, OBE, is a British UNICEF Ambassador, a former broadcast war reporter and former independent politician who became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 1997 to 2001. He is sometimes known as "the man in the white suit".
Saint Peter Faber was the first Jesuit priest and theologian, who was also a co-founder of the Society of Jesus. Pope Francis announced his canonization on 17 December 2013.
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. They were also called special correspondents.
Pope Francis is the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, the first to visit and hold papal mass in the Arabian Peninsula, and the first pope from outside Europe since the Syrian Gregory III, who reigned in the 8th century.
Jeremy Gordon Thompson is an English journalist and former news presenter for Sky News, the 24-hour television news service operated by Sky UK. He was based at Sky News Centre in West London. He started out as a journalist on the Cambridge Evening News in 1967. In 1971 he joined the BBC as a reporter on Radio Sheffield, moving on to become a reporter on BBC Look North Leeds. In 1977 he was appointed as the BBC's first TV North of England Correspondent. He moved to ITN as Sports Correspondent in 1982. He worked as a TV foreign correspondent from 1986 to 1998, initially based in Asia and Africa for ITN; on joining Sky News in 1993, Thompson became head of its Africa bureau, based in Johannesburg. Two years later he established Sky's first US bureau in Washington DC. From 1999 until his retirement from Sky News at the end of 2016, he presented Live at Five, Sky News' flagship news programme.
John Magee SPS is a Roman Catholic bishop emeritus in Ireland. He was Bishop of Cloyne from 1987 to 2010; following scandal he resigned from that position on 24 March 2010, becoming a bishop emeritus. Magee is the only person to have been private secretary to three popes.
John L. Allen Jr. is an American journalist serving as editor of the Roman Catholic–oriented news website Crux, formerly hosted by The Boston Globe and currently produced in partnership with the Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus. Before moving to The Boston Globe when Crux was established in 2014, Allen worked for 16 years in Rome as a Vatican watcher, covering news about the Holy See and the Pope. During that time he was senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter and an analyst of Vatican affairs for CNN and NPR. He has been called "America's leading Vaticanist".
Martin O'Brien is an Irish journalist, newspaper columnist, broadcaster, media/communications consultant and speech writer. He specializes in religious affairs and is the Northern Correspondent of The Irish Catholic newspaper. He covered the election of Pope Francis for BBC Northern Ireland. He left the BBC on 31 March 2013, having been on the staff for 28 years, and has established his own business, Martin O'Brien Media, based in Belfast.
Donald William Wuerl is an American prelate of the Catholic Church, and was Archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2006 to 2018. He was elevated by Pope John Paul II to serve as Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle (1986–1987), and Bishop of Pittsburgh (1988–2006). He was named Archbishop of Washington by Pope Benedict XVI and made a cardinal by him in 2010. Wuerl was the subject of a 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report that praised and criticized how he handled sexual abuse cases during his time in Pittsburgh. Wuerl has denied mishandling the cases. On October 12, 2018, Pope Francis accepted his resignation as Archbishop of Washington, although Wuerl remains in charge of the archdiocese as its apostolic administrator until Pope Francis appoints his successor, and remains a member of the College of Cardinals, one of only ten American cardinals who could choose the next Pope.
Alan S. Cowell is a British journalist and a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times.
William "Bill" Tuohy was a journalist and author who, for most of his career, was a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.
Malcolm Wilde Browne was an American journalist and photographer. His best known work was the award-winning photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.
Francis X. Murphy was a Redemptorist chaplain and theology professor. He is most known for his articles about the Second Vatican Council, published under the pseudonym Xavier Rynne.
Brian Munro Barron MBE was a British foreign and war correspondent for BBC News. During a career spanning five decades he reported on many major world events, including the end of British rule in Aden, the Vietnam War, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War. He was also the recipient of a Royal Television Society award for Reporter of the Year in 1980, and was presented with an International Reporting Prize for work in Latin America. He was awarded the MBE for his services to broadcasting in 2006.
Desmond M. O'Grady is an Australian journalist, author, and playwright who has resided and worked in Rome since 1962.
Leon Daniel was a reporter, manager, and senior editor of United Press International (UPI). He was considered to be the "gold standard" in wire service reporting.
The papal conclave of 2013 was convened to elect a pope to succeed Pope Benedict XVI following his resignation on 28 February 2013. After the 115 participating cardinal-electors gathered, they set 12 March 2013 as the beginning of the conclave. On the fifth ballot, the conclave elected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He took the pontifical name of Francis.
Trevor Fishlock is a reporter, author and broadcaster. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for The Times and The Daily Telegraph, reporting from more than 70 countries, and has written and broadcast programmes for television and radio. He has published a number of books with major publishing houses, including several on Wales. Fishlock was born in Hereford, and lives in Cardiff. He has broadcast from the National Library of Wales and gave the Machynlleth Festival's Hallstatt Lecture in 1999.
