Author Who Traveled with Popes Will Give Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Vatican

Source: Elmhurst College

Journalist John Thavis is known in the trade as a “Vaticanista,” having covered three popes and the highest reaches of the Catholic hierarchy for more than 30 pivotal and tumultuous years as a correspondent and bureau chief in Rome.

Author of the New York Times best seller, The Vatican Diaries: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church (2013), Thavis will present Inside the Vatican Oct. 29 at Elmhurst College.

Thavis first worked in Italy in 1978 as a headline writer, then news editor, for the Rome Daily American. Four years later, Thavis persuaded his wife to relocate from Minnesota to Rome, where he penned a guidebook to Rome and worked part time with the Associated Press, ABC News and Wine Spectator magazine. 

But it was his work as a reporter for the Catholic News Service that allowed Thavis to dive into Vatican affairs. He not only covered the Vatican on a daily basis, but also traveled to more than 60 countries with Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, and reported on other religious stories from Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In 1996 he became the Catholic News Service’s Rome bureau chief.

Inside the Vatican will begin at 7 p.m. in the Founders Lounge of the Frick Center, 190 Prospect Ave. A book signing will follow. Admission is $10, free for Elmhurst College students, faculty, staff and alumni. Tickets are available by visiting www.elmhurst.edu/tix. For more information, call (630) 617-3390.