Vittorio Messori dies, Italian Catholic journalist and author, defender of the faith

Vittorio Messori, a renowned Italian Catholic journalist, convert, and author of over 20 books in which he defended the faith and made it accessible to the general public by offering reasons for it, passed away at the age of 84 on April 3 at his home in Desenzano del Garda, Italy.

Messori was the author of the books “The Ratzinger Report” (1985) — produced after interviewing then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI — and “Crossing the Threshold of Hope” (1994), written after interviewing St. John Paul II. Both works became global bestsellers and were translated into a number of languages.

In a post on X, Spanish Bishop José Ignacio Munilla remembered Messori as “a journalist to whom we owe a great deal in the Catholic Church” and highlighted that “The Ratzinger Report” is a book he has “underlined and reread many times, and which has helped me enormously to understand the postconciliar crisis and to navigate through turbulent waters.”

Messori first gained international recognition in 1976, when he published his book “Hypotheses on Jesus,” a work that sought to counter skepticism using historical and rational arguments regarding Christ, thereby becoming a global touchstone for the Catholic faith.

Messori was born on April 16, 1941, in Sassuolo, Italy. He was raised in an agnostic family, with a mother who put him “on guard” against priests.

Between June and August 1964, while studying political science at the university, he decided to convert to the Catholic faith.

“I entered into what felt like a new dimension, where the truth of that Gospel, which until then I had known nothing about, became crystal clear and tangible to me. Even though I had never attended church and had never undertaken any religious studies, I discovered that my perspective — previously secularist and agnostic — had suddenly become Christian. More than that: Catholic,” Messori told ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, in a 2009 interview.

The Italian journalist made the comments in Spain, where he had gone to present his book “Why I Believe,” in which he recounted how he went from being an agnostic to becoming the most prestigious Catholic apologist of the era.

Messori also authored “They Say He Is Resurrected,” in which he delved into the facts and data that substantiate the historicity of the Gospel passages concerning the Resurrection.

He also wrote “Black Legends of the Church,” in which he responded to various historical myths concerning the Church, such as those related to the Inquisition, Galileo, the conquest of the Americas, and the Crusades, among others.

In a 2022 statement to ACI Prensa, Messori emphasized that being a convert “has been my drama, but it has also been my advantage, in the sense that I cannot be swayed by human respect when, in reality, for me, the discovery of the Church has been the discovery of a home.”

He further underscored that in his books and articles, faith in Christ has “never” been an “ideology, or something cultural or sociological. It has been a living person.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.