Pope Francis is a papal communicator like no other, says veteran Vatican watcher

Crux Staff• March 26, 2025

A journalist considered a living legend within the Vatican’s press corps has spoken about the unique communication style of Pope Francis that has, in her opinion, revolutionised how the papacy addresses the world.

Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki compared the different styles displayed across the three most recent papacies she has covered – popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis – highlighting the weaknesses and strengths displayed during the different papacies, and how the different styles of the respective popes impacted both how the media covered the head of the Catholic Church and reflected him back to the wider world.

Alazraki gave a keynote address during the third communications conference of the Spanish Conference of Religious (CONFER), held recently in Madrid.

Speaking to Spanish news site Alfa y Omega afterwards, she reflected on the papal communication styles she has seen in her nearly 50 years as a correspondent in Rome. Alazraki said she first came to Rome as a Vatican correspondent with Mexican television network Televisa when Pope Paul VI died in 1978, covering his death and the two conclaves that happened that year – the one that elected Pope John Paul I, and the one that elected Pope John Paul II.

In terms of how they handled media relations, she said, “Each one had a distinct personality and institutional communications style.”

There are some ways of communicating that are more effective than others, Alazraki noted, adding that her experience suggests that “the model that works is that of John Paul II [and] Navarro-Valls, which can be applied in a company, a political party or a diocese”.

The reference was to Joaquin Navarro-Valls, who served as Vatican spokesman under John Paul II and has become somewhat of a legend among Vaticanisti who covered the papacy and saw the tight-knit relationship between John Paul II and Navarro-Valls in action.

In those days, there wasn’t much that happened inside the Vatican walls that Navarro-Valls didn’t know about, or participate in, meaning that when he spoke to journalists and gave information, they knew it was coming from the Pope himself.

Navarro-Valls was known to fudge the truth at times, notoriously saying John Paul II had eaten 10 cookies for breakfast the day after having a tracheotomy to insert a feeding tube in 2005; however, his grasp on what was happening remains unmatched by any of his predecessors and successors.

Under this model, Alazraki said, “the spokesperson must have direct and frequent access to know what the boss, in this case the Pope, thinks and be able to speak with authority, since the information comes from him. This way, he can be available to the press to help the Pope.”

Benedict XVI, who was elected after John Paul II’s death in 2005, had a different approach, Alazraki said, saying he “didn’t want a direct relationship with his spokesperson”.

That meant that Benedict’s spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, “inaugurated a way of communication based on service”, she said.

“Without direct contact with the Pope, he decided that the press had to be informed and that he should help [them] in understanding what was happening. He gathered information and made it available in interviews and press conferences,” she said.

Pope Francis, on the other hand, “has taken on this task personally,” Alazraki said, adding that Francis has decided that he himself should be the one communicating and getting his own message out through his gestures, words and interviews, rather than [through] a spokesman.

“He believes he communicates with his language, with his spontaneous, non-institutional communication. And the press office reflects the Pope’s desire to be the one who communicates,” she said.

Alazraki, who has interviewed Pope Francis multiple times, spoke of her years covering Pope John Paul II, whose papacy she wrote about as if telling a story.

“Because of who he was, because of the relationship he built with Mexico, I spoke about him with a lot of heart, showing the human being, not just the institution,” she said, recalling how John Paul II knew that without his press entourage, his message would never have gotten out.

“He sought an alliance,” she said, recalling how at the end of every international trip, John Paul would thank the press corps traveling with him for their work.

Alazraki described the first decade of covering John Paul II as “a unique experience because he was a great leader who was making history. When the Berlin Wall fell, I thought the first stone had fallen on his first trip to Poland, and I was there.”

John Paul II “was a hurricane” who never seemed to stop, until his health began to deteriorate due to Parkinsons disease, she said, explaining that his experience of pain and suffering, at a personal level, “was an even more powerful human and spiritual experience”.

“He was a man who shared the Cross. There, he displayed his Polish mysticism,” she said.

When Benedict XVI was elected, he came in with a lot of baggage and prejudices from his time leading the Vatican’s then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Alazraki said, adding that the Vatican press corps at that point “had an enormous responsibility”.

Benedict XVI “was always negative in the news, when he could have been positive because of his intelligence or theological training,” she said, recalling how his papacy was marked by a series of communications flops attributed to him, but that were ultimately not his fault.

These mistakes, she said, included a controversial line about Islam in a speech at Regensburg that caused riots among Muslims and led to the death of one missionary nun, as well as the lifting of the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop belonging to the breakaway Society of St. Pius X.

Pope Francis, when it comes to communication and handling the media, “is an extraordinary person: he gives interviews, answers letters or calls. It wasn’t usual for a pope to do that,” she said.

Despite a reputation for never giving interviews while archbishop of Argentina, Pope Francis has given more interviews than any pope in recent history, she said, recalling Francis’s first in-flight press conference returning from World Youth Day in Rio de Janiero in 2013.

Alazraki said that after she reminded Francis of his disdain for giving interviews, “He replied that he didn’t feel comfortable, but that he would answer our questions upon his return. He held an extraordinary press conference.”

“He’s the best communicator there is,” even if his approach is not always appreciated, she said.

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Photo: Pope Francis wears a traditional Mexican sombrero hat received as a gift by a Mexican journalist on aboard his papal flight to Havana, Cuba, 12 February 2016. (Photo by ALESSANDRO DI MEO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images.)