✣Highlights from the week online
The giant who spoke for St John Paul II Joaquin Navarro-Valls, St John Paul II’s spokesman for many years, died last week. In a tribute at Crux, John Allen quoted Shakespeare: “Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.”
Navarro had his flaws, Allen said. “For one thing, it was often not entirely clear, when he talked about John Paul, whether he was telling us what actually happened or what he felt should have happened.” He once gave a detailed description of a meeting Pope John Paul had with a Guatemalan human rights activist, “down to the colourful native costume she wore”, without realising that the meeting had actually been cancelled at the last moment.
