By Julie Waters
TALENTED Bangor author Stephen Walker could be forgiven for thinking a photograph of Pope Leo XIV holding a copy of his biography of John Hume was an April Fool prank.
But in this case, the truth is certainly stranger than fiction because Barry Andrews, a Fianna Fáil TD, gifted Walker’s biography, ‘John Hume: The Persuader’ to Pope Leo during a visit to the Vatican this Easter.
Mr Walker, an award winning journalist, penned the book about the Nobel laureate and key architect of the Good Friday Agreement who played such a big role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland after decades of conflict, back in 2023.
This was followed by the David Trimble: Peacemaker biography which gave unparalleled insight into the first person to be elected First Minister of Northern Ireland and the last Ulster Unionist to hold that title. The book was published just last year.
Mr Walker admitted that seeing one of his books in the hands of the Pontiff came ‘as a bit of surprise’.
“I got a message from a reporter at the Impartial Reporter who sent me the photograph and asked ‘have you seen this?’
“I said ’no’ and asked if this was an April Fool? I thought what is going on? What is this about? I thought it had been photoshopped.”
The former investigative reporter quickly established the photograph was indeed genuine as Mr Andrews had been granted a private audience with the head of the Catholic Church.
“I had been reading through some April Fools and most of them are not very good and you can spot them a mile away, so my antenna was up,” said Mr Walker.
However he said: “I did some research and Mr Barry Andrews had been in Italy and on social media he talked about being in the Vatican and I began to think ‘this is genuine’.”
The author said: “I put the image on social media when I was satisfied it was genuine and said how I had initially thought it was an April Fool. However, Mr Andrews and his wife Sinead had a private audience with the Pope and had presented him with the book – it was fantastic.”
Mr Walker then set about thanking Mr Andrews saying: “I rang him just to thank him and he said I was very welcome. He thought it would be nice to give the Pope a gift, he wanted to give him a gift about peacemaking, and he wanted to give him the John Hume book.
“I told him that that was very kind and I hoped the Pope liked it. I just think it is one of those lovely, quirky things and lots of people have liked it on social media.”
In the interests of fairness, Mr Walker said he was also keen that Pope Leo should enjoy the biography of fellow Nobel Laureate David Trimble.
As for the thought books is sitting on the Vatican’s bookshelves, Mr Walker said: “It is amazing.”
