Napier will take over the role from the current ambassador, Paul Gibbard, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced May 8.

Joly expressed her deep respect for Napier, and said “Canadians can count on Joyce’s experience, stature and tenacity representing Canada to the Holy See.”

“Critically, Joyce will work at the Vatican to advance reconciliation with Indigenous peoples including confronting the painful legacy of the residential school system,” said Joly.

Napier’s journalism career spans more than 40 years where she has worked at The Canadian Press, CBC, the Globe and Mail, La Presse and CTV, where she was parliamentary bureau chief until June 2023. In her bio at ctvnews.ca, Napier says her most memorable career moment was reporting from Rome on the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005.

Born in Montreal and raised in Rome before returning to Canada as a young woman to study journalism at Concordia University in Montreal, Napier speaks English, French, Italian and Spanish.