Alain Woodrow, a former religion writer for the French daily Le Monde and a longtime contributor to The Tablet, has died aged 82 in a Paris suburb. Born in 1938 to an Anglo-French family in Hertfordshire, he studied French and Russian at Oxford and in the Royal Navy before moving to Paris to enter the seminary. After leaving, he began a bilingual writing career that informed and amused readers on both sides of the Channel.
Described as a “discreet eccentric” by a former colleague, Woodrow began his francophone career at Les Informations catholiques internationales (1967-1974) before becoming the chief religion correspondent for Le Monde, a post he held until 1987.
Appropriately, his first article for The Tablet was headlined in French, “Révolution à la Sorbonne”. His analysis of France’s “events of May” in the 8 June 1968 edition began a regular series of reports, commentaries and book reviews on religious and secular issues in France and Europe that lasted until 2011.
“One of the roles of a journalist specialised in religion news is to serve as a mediator between the Church and public opinion,” he once said of his work-as-vocation.
Woodrow was also the author of over a dozen books in French that ranged from Catholic topics to Anglo-French rivalries and journalism, including even a tongue-in-cheek novel entitled: “The Pope has Lost the Faith” (2001).
Among the non-fiction works were “The New Sects” (1976), “Everything you always wanted to know about the English – but never dared ask them” (1997), “The Jesuits: A Story of Power” (1995) and “The ‘World’ Tour in 8,000 Days” (2005), about Le Monde (“The World”).
“His joie de vivre and his sense of irony, known to those who knew him, hardly fit the religious beat, nor did his British origin, or at least what many French imagined it to be,” his obituary in Le Monde said. “Ecumenical, a critical Catholic … he liked to say he had expanded the coverage of other religions.”
Woodrow wrote with authority and conviction, in a style that earned him both fans and critics in France. The latter didn’t like his description of the late Saint Pope John Paul II as a “superstar” and “singer whose songs nobody listens to” or the way he accused the late Paris Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of being “a disconcerting mixture of popular banter and shady authoritarianism”.
With “The New Sects”, he infuriated the guru-led movements he described as “the blinking lights that signal a fault in the circuits of our materialist civilisation”.
But that frankness was part of what Woodrow, who ended his newspaper career in 1991 in Le Monde’s communications department, once listed in his Ten Commandments of journalism. They ranged from “thou shalt defend truth” to “thou shalt not forget humility”.
Woodrow remained binational to the end. “Spending thirty-five years of one’s life defending the English against the French and justifying the French in the eyes of the English does not leave you unscathed,” he wrote in his book about the English. “While I saw only the bright side of each culture, my detractors insisted on the shortcomings of those on the other side.”
Anglo-French religion writer Alain Woodrow dies in Paris age 82
Tom Heneghan in Paris
Alain Woodrow, a former religion writer for the French daily Le Monde and a longtime contributor to The Tablet, has died aged 82 in a Paris suburb. Born in 1938 to an Anglo-French family in Hertfordshire, he studied French and Russian at Oxford and in the Royal Navy before moving to Paris to enter the seminary. After leaving, he began a bilingual writing career that informed and amused readers on both sides of the Channel.
Described as a “discreet eccentric” by a former colleague, Woodrow began his francophone career at Les Informations catholiques internationales (1967-1974) before becoming the chief religion correspondent for Le Monde, a post he held until 1987.
Appropriately, his first article for The Tablet was headlined in French — “Révolution à la Sorbonne”. His analysis of France’s “events of May” in the 8 June 1968 edition began a regular series of reports, commentaries and book reviews on religious and secular issues in France and Europe that lasted until 2011.
“One of the roles of a journalist specialised in religion news is to serve as a mediator between the Church and public opinion,” he once said of his work-as-vocation.
Woodrow was also the author of over a dozen books in French that ranged from Catholic topics to Anglo-French rivalries and journalism, including even a tongue-in-cheek novel entitled “The Pope has Lost the Faith” (2001).
Among the non-fiction works were “The New Sects” (1976), “Everything you always wanted to know about the English — but never dared ask them” (1997), “The Jesuits: A Story of Power” (1995) and “The ‘World’ Tour in 8,000 Days” (2005), about Le Monde (“The World”).
“His joie de vivre and his sense of irony, known to those who knew him, hardly fit the religious beat, nor did his British origin, or at least what many French imagined it to be,” his obituary in Le Monde said. “Ecumenical, a critical Catholic … he liked to say he had expanded the coverage of other religions.”
Woodrow wrote with authority and conviction, in a style that earned him both fans and critics in France. The latter didn’t like his description of the late Saint Pope John Paul II as a “superstar” and “singer whose songs nobody listens to” or the way he accused the late Paris Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of being “a disconcerting mixture of popular banter and shady authoritarianism”.
With “The New Sects”, he infuriated the guru-led movements he described as “the blinking lights that signal a fault in the circuits of our materialist civilisation”.
But that frankness was part of what Woodrow — who ended his newspaper career in 1991 in Le Monde’s communications department — once listed in his Ten Commandments of journalism. They ranged from “thou shalt defend truth” to “thou shalt not forget humility”.
Woodrow remained binational to the end. “Spending thirty-five years of one’s life defending the English against the French and justifying the French in the eyes of the English does not leave you unscathed,” he wrote in his book about the English. “While I saw only the bright side of each culture, my detractors insisted on the shortcomings of those on the other side.”
Anglo-French religion writer Alain Woodrow dies in Paris age 82
Tom Heneghan in Paris
Alain Woodrow, a former religion writer for the French daily Le Monde and a longtime contributor to The Tablet, has died aged 82 in a Paris suburb. Born in 1938 to an Anglo-French family in Hertfordshire, he studied French and Russian at Oxford and in the Royal Navy before moving to Paris to enter the seminary. After leaving, he began a bilingual writing career that informed and amused readers on both sides of the Channel.
Described as a “discreet eccentric” by a former colleague, Woodrow began his francophone career at Les Informations catholiques internationales (1967-1974) before becoming the chief religion correspondent for Le Monde, a post he held until 1987.
Appropriately, his first article for The Tablet was headlined in French — “Révolution à la Sorbonne”. His analysis of France’s “events of May” in the 8 June 1968 edition began a regular series of reports, commentaries and book reviews on religious and secular issues in France and Europe that lasted until 2011.
“One of the roles of a journalist specialised in religion news is to serve as a mediator between the Church and public opinion,” he once said of his work-as-vocation.
Woodrow was also the author of over a dozen books in French that ranged from Catholic topics to Anglo-French rivalries and journalism, including even a tongue-in-cheek novel entitled “The Pope has Lost the Faith” (2001).
Among the non-fiction works were “The New Sects” (1976), “Everything you always wanted to know about the English — but never dared ask them” (1997), “The Jesuits: A Story of Power” (1995) and “The ‘World’ Tour in 8,000 Days” (2005), about Le Monde (“The World”).
“His joie de vivre and his sense of irony, known to those who knew him, hardly fit the religious beat, nor did his British origin, or at least what many French imagined it to be,” his obituary in Le Monde said. “Ecumenical, a critical Catholic … he liked to say he had expanded the coverage of other religions.”
Woodrow wrote with authority and conviction, in a style that earned him both fans and critics in France. The latter didn’t like his description of the late Saint Pope John Paul II as a “superstar” and “singer whose songs nobody listens to” or the way he accused the late Paris Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of being “a disconcerting mixture of popular banter and shady authoritarianism”.
With “The New Sects”, he infuriated the guru-led movements he described as “the blinking lights that signal a fault in the circuits of our materialist civilisation”.
But that frankness was part of what Woodrow — who ended his newspaper career in 1991 in Le Monde’s communications department — once listed in his Ten Commandments of journalism. They ranged from “thou shalt defend truth” to “thou shalt not forget humility”.
Woodrow remained binational to the end. “Spending thirty-five years of one’s life defending the English against the French and justifying the French in the eyes of the English does not leave you unscathed,” he wrote in his book about the English. “While I saw only the bright side of each culture, my detractors insisted on the shortcomings of those on the other side.”
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