Navarro-Valls steps down as Vatican spokesman

Joaquin Navarro-Valls

VATICAN CITY - Joaquin Navarro-Valls, arguably the most famous figure in the Vatican after the Pope himself, stepped down on Tuesday after 22 years as chief spokesman.

The Vatican said Pope Benedict had accepted Navarro-Valls' request to resign and had named Father Federico Lombardi, Jesuit director of Vatican Radio and Vatican Television, to succeed him. Lombardi, 63, will keep those posts, the Vatican said.

Navarro-Valls, a suave, handsome Spaniard who has been spokesman since 1984 and whose career was closely associated with the papacy of John Paul II, had expressed an interest in moving on and dedicating his time to writing a book.

Navarro-Valls, 69, a member of the controversial Church group Opus Dei, was only the second non-cleric to be Vatican spokesman. He was at John Paul's side during his many international travels.

He was on news bulletins nearly non-stop during the final weeks of John Paul's pontificate in April 2005 and the during the conclave that elected Pope Benedict.

His study of medicine in his native Spain enabled him to explain the late Pope's health problems condition to the media.

His ability to keep cool under pressure cracked only once in public, when he choked and struggled to hold back his tears at one of the last briefings before John Paul's death.

"I had been trying to keep my emotions in check but then a reporter asked how I was experiencing the passing of the Pope personally and I couldn't control myself," he told an interviewer.

In 1984, John Paul asked Navarro-Valls, then working as a journalist for Spanish newspapers, to take over the Vatican press office and gave him the task of opening it up more to the international media.

A member of the late Pope's "kitchen cabinet", he was on the frontline in explaining sometimes controversial teachings on morality and sexuality to the world media in five languages.

Pope John Paul often used Navarro-Valls as a trouble-shooter and gave him tasks normally entrusted to diplomats.

In 1998 he went to Cuba to negotiate directly with Fidel Castro to iron out last-minute snags over John Paul's historic visit. He was also part of official Vatican delegations to UN conferences on the family and women normally made up of clerics.

- REUTERS