NPR's Sylvia Poggioli on the realities of covering the Vatican

By Scott Detrow,

Sylvia Poggioli

Published May 10, 2025 at 6:16 PM AST

In this series, NPR takes readers and listeners behind the news and explains how we do our journalism. Here, Sylvia Poggioli talks about the challenges of covering the Vatican, for this week's Reporter's Notebook.

Poggioli, who has covered several papal conclaves and the Vatican for decades, reflects on what it's like to report on one of the most secretive institutions in the world.

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Scott Detrow

Scott Detrow is the weekend host of All Things Considered, and a co-host of the Consider This podcast. In this role Detrow also contributes to the weekday All Things Considered broadcasts, and regularly hosts NPR's live special coverage of major news stories.

Sylvia Poggioli

Sylvia Poggioli is senior European correspondent for NPR's International Desk covering political, economic, and cultural news in Italy, the Vatican, Western Europe, and the Balkans. Poggioli's on-air reporting and analysis have encompassed the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the turbulent civil war in the former Yugoslavia, and how immigration has transformed European societies.