Fox Reporter to Vatican

The Age
June 26, 2012

www.theage.com.au/world/fox-reporter-to-vatican-20120625-20ygi.html

Greg Burke.

A FOX News reporter has been chosen by Pope Benedict XVI to sort out the Vatican's media strategy amid signs that the 85-year-old pontiff is plotting a radical shake-up at the top of the Roman Catholic church.

Greg Burke, a 52-year-old member of the conservative Opus Dei fellowship, is to take a job in the Vatican's secretariat of state. He said: "I feel exactly the way I felt in Lebanon at the start of the 2006 war - nervous and excited at the same time."

Burke, who is Rome correspondent for Fox television, said he had twice refused a similar offer from the Vatican "because I had a really great job".

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The appointment followed a meeting between the Pope and his cardinals on Saturday. The Vatican has been in turmoil, with the sacking of the head of the Vatican bank and the arrest of the Pope's butler, who is accused of leaking correspondence. After a meeting on Saturday, the Pope consulted a group of five cardinals that did not include the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Exclusion of the Vatican's "prime minister" prompted speculation that Pope Benedict had yielded to pressure for Cardinal Bertone's removal.