writing
Highlights
Father Paolo: Christian monk who dissapeared after trying to talk to ISIL, for Al Jazeera English.
Palestinian Christians despair as Gaza homeland destroyed by Israel’s war, for Al Jazeera English.
Thou shalt not drop catches, for The Times.
The angels of the Mare Jonio, for Vatican News (in Italian).
The Madonna of Tunis, for Al Jazeera English.
Other work
I work for Vatican News, the state’s official media network, reporting mainly on Pope Francis and global religion.
Some highlights:
– Report from Iraq on the reopening of two historic churches destroyed by so-called Islamic State.
– Interview with José Ramos-Horta, President of Timor-Leste and Nobel Peace Prize winner, on the Pope’s visit to his country, and the importance of ‘human fraternity’.
– Feature on Fr. Jens Petzold, a Swiss monk serving refugees in Kurdistan.
– Report from Lisbon on an interreligious dialogue conference featuring the Imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca.
You can also find my writing in The Times, Al Jazeera, The Hedgehog Review, The Tablet, National Catholic Reporter, The Yorkshire Post and elsewhere.
View from Rome
For about a year and a half, from January 2024 to August 2025, I wrote a regular ‘View from Rome’ column for UK magazine The Tablet. Those columns, mainly dedicated to the Vatican but with occasional forays into Italian culture and politics, are archived below.
02/08/2025: Roman holidays; Palestinian statehood; developments in doctrine.
28/06/2025: Buddhist tomatoes; making the Pope laugh.
07/06/2025: Pope Leo’s first few weeks.
05/04/2025: Pope Francis in hospital; genetically modified priests; The Leopard on Netflix.
08/03/2025: The Pope’s defining moment; Paragon spyware attacks.
15/02/2025: View from Abu Dhabi.
11/01/2025: Vatican-Serbia relations; animals in heaven.
21/12/2024: Christmas in Rome; keeping the faith in occupied Bethlehem.
16/11/2024: Ancient Persian Christianity; Meloni’s migration gamble; the Vatican’s anime mascot.
20/09/24: Keir Starmer in Rome; migration; the Pope in Asia.
15/08/24: Afghanistan; religious nationalism; the Pope’s reading list.
20/07/24: On tour with the Vatican cricket team; Roman summers.
15/06/24: Saudi Arabia; global billionaire tax; the Liberation of Rome.
20/04/24: Pope Francis and the Patriarchy; the Catholic left; the Italian media’s Vatican obsession.
09/03/24: Copts; the Pope’s health; the Emperor Constantine.
19/02/24: Gaza; hell; Tolkien; the Italian far right.