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

By Scott Detrow,

Published May 10, 2025 at 6:16 PM EDT

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.

Scott Detrow

Scott Detrow is a White House correspondent for NPR and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

See stories by Scott Detrow

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.

See stories by Sylvia Poggioli