Romeo Panciroli, 82; Archbishop, Diplomat, Spokesman for 3 Popes
Archbishop Romeo Panciroli, 82, spokesman for three popes before becoming a Vatican diplomat in Liberia and Iran, died Thursday, the Vatican announced.
The cause of death was not reported.
Panciroli was appointed the Vatican’s chief spokesman by Pope Paul VI in 1976 and kept the post under the brief papacy of John Paul I and the early years of John Paul II, who transferred him to the diplomatic service in 1984 and promoted him to archbishop. He returned to the Vatican in 1999.
Panciroli was a particularly tight-lipped spokesman in the Vatican tradition, known to the media as “Padre, Non Mi Risulta,” which roughly translates as “Father, I Don’t Have Anything on That.”
John Paul II appointed a Spanish journalist, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, to succeed Panciroli with a mandate to make more Vatican information available quickly.
Born in Italy, Panciroli was ordained as a priest in 1949. He was named Vatican secretary of state in 1960.
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