The news that Sir David Amess had been stabbed to death shocked many in the Vatican, where he was well known for his tireless work strengthening the relationship between the UK and the Holy See.

The Catholic MP was the founder and chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Holy See, which he established in 2006 after Foreign Office officials had sought to diminish the UK’s relationship with the Vatican through cuts to the embassy’s budget. With characteristic enthusiasm he raised the issue in the House of Commons, ensured his all-party group offered parliamentary oversight of UK-Holy See relations and enlisted MPs from across the political and religious spectrum in support.

Conservative MP Mark Pritchard, a former vice chairman of the group, told me that he and Sir David “successfully campaigned together to stop the planned closure of the British Embassy to the Holy See”. He described his former colleague as someone “whose Christian faith shone through his huge smile and continual acts of service to people of all backgrounds and faiths”. Behind Sir David’s smiling exterior lay a seasoned and savvy ­political campaigner.
Sir David made regular visits to the Vatican. He could be spotted carrying bags of devotional items that had been blessed by the Pope, which he would then distribute to constituents and friends. On one occasion, as he fished around in his pocket for an item for a papal blessing, he presented the Pope with a boiled sweet. He joked afterwards that it had become “the holy sweet”. Francis Campbell, UK Ambassador to the Holy See from 2005 to 2011, described Sir David as a “dynamo” who was “always connecting people and translating ideas into action”.