ROME — Among the parade of priests and nuns who stroll in and around Vatican City, there is a special breed of journalist who is tasked with explaining the pope and the Roman curia to the world.

These Vatican watchers — “Vaticanisti” in Italian, the plural of “Vaticanista” — is a term coined in the mid-20th century to describe a journalist, scholar or analyst who understands the Catholic church and the issues that surround the Holy See.  

The term dates back to the early 1960s, in the days before Vatican II, when only four journalists covered Vatican City on a daily basis. These men became known as Vaticanisti. Their job was and remains to parse public statements, interpret documents and sift through gossip in order to explain this information to Italians and the rest of the world.

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And like the paparazzi, they are lurking all over Rome.

Andrea Gagliarducci, who writes in Italian and English, is a Vaticanist. He has contributed to Catholic News Agency and ACI Stampa but also operates a blog where he regularly posts his thoughts. Asked about the Vatican press corps and who people should read, Gagliarducci replied, “It’s good to read everyone.”

“I wouldn't suggest any colleague because it would be disrespectful to other colleagues,” he added.

Gagliarducci — speaking to a group of international journalists during a recent lunch at a Roman trattoria that included a main course of veal with a side of roasted potatoes — said covering the Vatican is all about knowing and understanding historical context.  

“All of us have a bias, but the more you read (other Vaticanolgists), the more you understand the bias, the more you can find your way,” he said. “So read everything I would say, read a lot of history of the church. History is crucial. I mean, when you start doing journalism you want to find scoops, but there aren’t too many scoops at the Vatican.”

John Allen, one of the world’s foremost scholars on the Vatican and Catholicism, has been in Rome for nearly three decades. Currently the editor of Crux Now, Allen worked as a correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter for 16 years and regularly appears on American television to explain the papacy.

“When I got here, there were really very few English-language correspondents who were covering the Vatican on a full-time basis. I could count them on one hand,” Allen recalled.  

On covering the Vatican, he said the “art of being a journalist is not being an expert” on Rome, the pope or any other subject. 

“It’s about knowing who the experts are so that we can then find them, steal their ideas and pass them off as our own,” Allen joked. “I made a career out of it.”  

A tradition dating back to the 1950s

Gagliarducci learned his trade from his mentor Benny Lai, known as the dean of journalists accredited to the Holy See. Lai, who had covered the Vatican since 1952, died in 2013.

At the time, the Vatican press office was located inside the Holy See’s walls (it is now across the street from St. Peter’s Square along Via Della Conciliazione), where L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, had its offices.

Lai, according to Gagliarducci, poured over papal writings, encyclicals and any and all documents he could get his hands on. Research was something Lai believed in and passed along to the young Gagliarducci when he first started out as a reporter. 

Gagliarducci said history has helped him “put things in perspective” and helped him not to “get emotional when you see things.”

In his 2017 book, “Becoming A Vaticanist: Religious Information in the Digital Age,” Italian journalist Giovanni Tridente observed that a mix of facts and context is the foundation of what it takes to properly report on and about the Holy See.

“A journalist who only plays the part of a pundit has ceased to search for the facts, the stories or his or her ‘opinion.’ Even if it’s in good faith, (such journalism) is still limited because it still lacks the proper context that takes you — to continue the example — outside of your ivory tower,” he wrote.

Nearly 200 men and women are currently accredited to the Holy See. This past January, Pope Francis met with a large contingent of the Vatican press corps, urging them to combine “subtlety of spirit” with journalistic skill in order to effectively communicate.

“I must apologize for the times when news concerning me in various ways has taken you away from your families, from playing with your children and from spending time with your husbands or wives.” he said.

But many Vaticanisti aren’t limited to reporting what the pope says. It’s largely about what it all means for the church and the planet’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

Inside the conclave

Some of the biggest mysteries of the Roman curia — the Holy See’s government — are the cardinals and the different departments within the Vatican. More specifically, when these men in red hats are summoned to Rome to elect a new pope.

Gagliarducci tried to lift the veil of secrecy of this centuries-old practice. On who could replace Pope Francis should he resign or upon his death, Gagliarducci said the cardinals “will do what they think is best.”

“We don't know what happens in a conclave,” he added. “When they get into the conclave, they [the cardinals] are secluded. … They have 120 cardinals, all the people together in a specific situation, knowing that there are the eyes of all the world on them, but not knowing what all the world is thinking.”  

On whether the next pontiff would be less of a reformer compared to Francis, whom many traditional Catholics deem politically progressive, Gagliarducci dispelled it as “labeling” by reporters.

“I believe that is mostly a journalistic thing we do because I never saw a conservative that is not liberal and in many cases a liberal that is not conservative,” he said.    

Allen agreed on the labels, saying St. John Paul II, widely viewed as a conservative pope regarding doctrine, was “liberal when it came to his social and political agenda.”  

In downplaying the doctrinal divisions, Allen said you were more likely to see battles between clerics over which pro soccer team in Rome — AS Roma or Lazio — to cheer for on Sundays.

“I used to joke that John Paul could not get nominated even by the Democrats in the United States because he would have been seen as too liberal on foreign policy,” Allen said. “He was a ferocious critic of free market capitalism, he was pro-environment and against the death penalty.”  

As for speculation on who will be the next pontiff, Gagliarducci said it could be anyone.

“Anything can happen (in a conclave) because most of the decisions are taken and made when they are at lunch together because it’s the only moment when they can talk,” he said. There is a lot of tension, and in that tension, they can go elsewhere [in who they elect] very easily.”  

Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.