David Willey, BBC journalist who covered Treaty of Rome, dies at 93

David Willey, the BBC’s longtime Vatican correspondent who spent more than half a century reporting on Europe’s defining political and religious institutions, has died of heart failure in Italy at the age of 93.

For European public life, Willey offered a rare continuous thread through the continent’s post-war transformation. He began his career at the Reuters news agency and was present in 1957 for the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the document that established the European Economic Community and formed the basis for the modern European Union.

Recalling that day on its 50th anniversary in 2007, Willey wrote: "I was actually there in the huge room frescoed with scenes from ancient Roman battles, when the six frock-coated founders of the Europe of the Six appended their signatures to the Treaty." He noted the room was crowded with members of parliament, city authorities, and "a single red-hatted cardinal from the Vatican."

That proximity to the Vatican would ultimately define his career. After working as a freelancer in Algeria, serving as the BBC’s east Africa correspondent in 1964, and reporting from Asia on the Vietnam War and communist China, Willey moved to Rome. He became widely regarded as a leading authority on the Holy See, covering the papacies of five popes.

His tenure spanned from the clandestine information-gathering of the 1950s to the modern era. Early on, he recalled relying on a corrupt Vatican official to get advance texts of papal speeches. "It was my job to take the bus down to the cafe opposite the main workers' entrance to Vatican City at eight in the morning one Easter Sunday to surreptitiously pick up a document that he had smuggled out," he wrote.

Later assignments included the 1981 assassination attempt on John Paul II and, last year, a meeting with the newly elected Pope Leo. Willey remained incisive in his analysis until the end of his life, and colleagues remembered him as a generous resource. "He was an incredible authority on the Vatican, reporting and travelling with five Popes, and was so kind, giving me insight and encouragement when I started in Rome in 2019," wrote BBC correspondent Mark Lowen.

News producer Gillian Hazell, who worked closely with him in Rome, called him "an esteemed friend and colleague with a mischievous sense of humour and endless fascinating stories from his assignments around the world." Willey authored a book on Pope Francis, The promise of Francis: The man, the Pope, and the challenge of change, which he presented to the pontiff in 2016. Reflecting last year on the modern changes within the Vatican, he also looked back on his own extraordinary tenure. "I have suddenly realised with something of shock that I am already not only four years older than the late Pope Francis, but that my own life now extends through no fewer than eight successive papal reigns," he wrote.