The next two years are going to be as important for the Church as the years of Vatican II in the 1960s, during which time the Catholic Herald cemented our then 75-year-old reputation as a world leader in independent Catholic news and commentary. This was largely thanks to our brilliant and fearless Irish-born editor, Desmond Fisher, reporting from Rome for much of the proceedings.
Fisher covered the 1963 and 1964 sessions of the council for the Herald with an objective clarity, putting our readers first. At the time, it alienated a number of cardinals – including John Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster – as well as the paper’s owners. But he stuck to his guns and earned the praise of many others. The Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Franz König, told Fisher that he learned “more of what is going on at the Council from your superb reports” than he heard “on the spot”.
