Ушла в отставку главный редактор римского бюро Catholic News Service Синди Вуден после 36 лет работы

A conversation with Cindy Wooden, retiring Chief of CNS’s Rome bureau after 36 years By Anna Artymiak It’s rare that someone spends his or her entire professional life at one company. Cindy Wooden, the first woman Chief of its Rome bureau, was such a rock for the Catholic News Service in the Eternal City. Generations of Americans grew up on Cindy’s stories. She was also a rock for the generations of us Vatican reporters, being the unforgettable president of the AIGAV (Associazione Internazionale dei Giornalisti Accreditati in Vaticano). Cindy grew up in the beautiful little town of Sandpoint in northern Idaho as one of 6 siblings — five sisters and one brother. She started her career in journalism on the high school newspaper staff and continued writing during her studies in Religion and Theology at Seattle University. At that time, she took a lot of journalism classes. Then she was given an internship with Catholic News Service in Washington, D.C., and worked as a temp there, eventually returning to Seattle to work for the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Seattle as the assistant editor. She was invited back to Washington to work for Catholic News Service, and after a year and a half she realized her goal of coming to Rome itself in 1989. Cindy is famous for being a hard worker, but apart from that, on free Sundays she was involved in the “parish” life of the Caravita community in Rome. During the years when she was in Rome for Christmas, she helped Sant’Egidio Community in preparing Christmas presents for the poor and serving them Christmas lunch. This January, after 36 years, Cindy Wooden retired. Now she is starting a new life back in her home country, and she has a couple of volunteer projects in mind. She is also going to work to build a new community, while missing her old friends in Rome. Inside the Vatican Rome correspondent Anna Artymiak spoke with Cindy about her long career as a journalist at the Vatican. ANNA ARTYMIAK: What was your first impression of Rome? CINDY WOODEN: I’d never been to Europe. It was aweinspiring. Everything was so big and so old compared to everything in the United States, and a little chaotic. It’s a big city. I do like the fact that there are lots of neighborhoods of Rome that are still like small towns, where everybody knows everybody and the daughter of the owner of the restaurant is married to the son of the owner of the pasta shop. So, you have a sense of community, even in the midst of this big craziness. I loved in the early years being able just to walk into St. Peter’s Basilica without having to go stand in line for security. You just pop in for a prayer. It’s a beautiful, amazing city and I still discover things. I went for a walk about a few months ago and there was this church in Trastevere that I always wanted to see. But it’s only open one hour a day on different days and different hours because it’s volunteers who open it. And I finally walked by when it was open. I’ve wanted to see this for 30 years. For some women, the Vatican is perceived as a very male environment and more challenging to us. What is your experience? WOODEN: I never experienced it as an unfriendly place to women. However, I’ve often experienced it as a place where the expertise and the experience and the talents of women aren’t taken as seriously as the talents and experience of men. Like the sisters. It’s amazing the things women religious do in this world and in this Church in the name of Jesus. The people who are what Pope Francis would have called the hands of the Lord, they’re mostly women. Teaching the children, nursing the sick, feeding the poor. Somehow when you’re this close to the Vatican and the Curia, for some reason people act like that’s not quite as important as running a dicastery when, in fact, in our faith, those things are the things that count. I just don’t feel like anyone’s ever rude to me, but I have felt that there are times when I wasn’t taken as seriously because I’m a woman and not a priest. When you say this, it reminds me of a touching speech by the Mother Superior of the De La Croix Hospital for the mentally ill people in Jal ed Dib, Lebanon, during Pope Leo’s first apostolic trip (in December 2025). She never made headlines. WOODEN: Exactly. And caring for people who nobody else… I went to Moscow in 1990 for the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday when it was still the Soviet Union and visited Mother Teresa’s sisters who were, under the Communist government, allowed to run a hospital for people who were in persistent vegetative states. They couldn’t convert any of them. Just the joy on their faces and the love of their interaction with these people who couldn’t give back. They knew that that’s where the Lord had placed them and that’s all they needed…They didn’t need headlines, they didn’t need anyone to know they were there or what they were doing. It was really one of my most memorable Easter Vigils. When you look back to all these years, which were the most challenging moments? WOODEN: The biggest newsy moments are the most difficult. The death of John Paul II; the election of Benedict XVI; but especially the resignation of Pope Benedict. The death of Pope Francis. The election of Leo. I don’t know why it didn’t feel difficult — it just felt exciting, which is kind of weird. Those moments, there’s so much work, there’s so much pressure, there’s so much unknown. Papal transitions, I think, have been the most difficult and kind of the most amazing as well. My big hope was that the person who was elected was one of the ones that we had profiled as papabile. It’s a practical response. Were you surprised that Ratzinger was elected after John Paul II? WOODEN: I was. The night before he was elected, in fact, I told a reporter from the BBC that he would never be elected. I mean, I told him categorically. I’ve never had a very good track record of predicting these things! What about Francis and Leo? WOODEN: Bergoglio was on our list because he was second in the conclave in 2005 before, but I didn’t know him that well. When it comes to Prevost, I still kind of thought that we would never have a U.S. Pope. So, he was a surprise to you. WOODEN: Especially when it happened as quickly as it did. I was convinced that it must have been the person that everybody called the “frontrunner,” which was Cardinal Pietro Parolin [Holy See Secretary of State] at that point. So, when the white smoke came, I called up what I had prepared about Parolin. And I was adding what time the smoke came and what time the bells started ringing. Then I had to cut that part and paste it onto the Prevost profile when we found out. I don’t have any special insight. I’m a journalist. I observe, I write what I see, but I’m not predicting. It’s not my job to predict, to criticize or to push the Pope to do something. I’m a journalist, I write about what happens. There were things that I really appreciated personally and professionally about each Pope. For example? WOODEN: John Paul II was so charismatic. People were drawn to him. It’s interesting, if you compare John Paul II and Francis, both of them brought people together and excited a crowd and touched people. John Paul II knew how to gather a crowd and carry them with him. I think Francis somehow was able to gather thousands of individuals and carry them with him. In Benedict, I always found really interesting when he would do these general audience talks that were kind of technical and theological, and he’d have 10,000 people in front of him; he was such a good professor that he knew exactly when he lost them and he would set the text down and he would explain in simple language what he just said. It was like ninety-nine times out of a hundred that it was the lead of my story. He was a really good professor and he could explain these highly complicated theories and theology, and in very simple language, which I think is brilliant. Cindy, Leo XIV’s first international trip was your last papal flight. You were on about 65 such flights during your career. What is it like to be on a plane with the Pope? WOODEN: It’s an honor because you know that there are people who wanted to be there, who couldn’t. It’s a lot of work. Any time you travel with someone else, you kind of create a bond with them. Obviously with the Pope, the bond isn’t that close, but it’s still the case that you’re sharing a trip with the Pope, which is pretty special. And then the journalists themselves. We’re going through these early mornings and the security and running here and there and trying to work as quickly as you can — all that creates a real bond among the journalists who fly with the Pope. That’s been something really special, working side by side, sharing information, and different groups kind of inviting people for meals and exploring cities together. It’s been a lot of fun. Also an opportunity to ask a question… WOODEN: Everybody on the plane wants to ask the Pope a question and it’s always difficult how to phrase it in order to get kind of a newsy response or an interesting response. Trying to kind of coordinate with other journalists so that not everybody’s asking the same question, but that you ask follow up questions to clarify things. It’s not a totally relaxed situation, but it is a small group of people. And so I think the personalities of the various Popes come through during these encounters and things that make them laugh, or their real concerns, or things that bother them — which was always quite obvious with Pope Francis, if he was annoyed at a question. It gives them an opportunity to share what was going through their minds at the various events on the trip, which is always helpful. Like Pope Leo said he thinks he finds it funny how we interpret his face when it’s not always accurate. So it’s good to hear from him himself. It’s really nice that Pope Leo continued what Pope Francis did with going through the plane and greeting every single person. Do you remember your first flight? WOODEN: It was 1990 to Malta with St. John Paul II. Probably it was very emotional… WOODEN: Yes, but overwhelming too, because I was young and there was so much I didn’t know and I hadn’t done this before. In some ways, it was easier because we didn’t have cell phones and constant Wi-Fi, so you weren’t expected to file every 10 minutes, or to tweet or Instagram post. So, I think there was more reflection. There was time to think about what was happening. There was also more time to go out into the crowds and ask people their opinion of what was happening. The difference between watching the Pope on television and reading the text and actually being there is that you can experience the trip partly through the eyes of the people who are there. So, I’ve been to some amazing places, met amazing people.People talk a lot about how in Rome you see the universality of the Church, but when you actually go to all of these places with the Pope, then it’s super clear that people have different languages and cultures and ways of expressing their faith, and it’s pretty amazing. How have the trips changed with each Pope? WOODEN: The big thing is the security, that’s globally since “Nine-Eleven” [the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attack] basically, needing to get to these events much earlier, and then just kind of standing around waiting. Pope Leo’s trip is very reminiscent of John Paul’s early trips, where there are two or three speeches in the morning, and then he adds private meetings during his lunch — long days. Whereas, with Benedict and Francis, it was basically one or two events in the morning, one or two events in the afternoon; it was calm, and it took longer for the Pope to get anywhere. And Pope Leo is super fit — he gets up, and he’s gone.