Vatican communications reform continues with new appointments, official’s transfer

Catholic Culture
December 21, 2015

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26995

Pope Francis has named an American layman, Greg Burke, as the vice director of the Holy See Press Office, effective February 1.

Burke, 55, worked for TIME Magazine and Fox News before becoming senior communications adviser to the Vatican Secretariat of State in 2012. He is a numerary, or lay celibate member, of the Opus Dei prelature, according to reports published on the Vatican website.

On December 21, Pope Francis also named Stefano D’Agostini as the new director of CTV, the Vatican Television Center. D’Agostini is currently the Center’s technical director, and he succeeds Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò, who was appointed prefect of the new Secretariat for Communications in June.

On December 19, Pope Francis transferred the Pontifical Council for Social Communications’ second-ranking official to the Pontifical Council for Culture and has named him a bishop. A French-language Vatican Radio report characterized the transfer as part of the ongoing reform of the Vatican’s communications efforts.

Bishop-designate Paul Tighe, 57, was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Dublin in 1983 and appointed secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in 2007.

His new position is adjunct secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture, in which capacity he will work with three other bishops: Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, (the pontifical council’s president), Bishop Barthélemy Adoukonou (its secretary), and Bishop Carlos Alberto de Pinho Moreira Azevedo (its delegate).

The Pontifical Council for Social Communications, created in 1988, is led by Cardinal Claudio Maria Celli, 74, and no replacement was named for Msgr. Tighe.

In June, Pope Francis issued an apostolic letter creating the Secretariat for Communications, led by Msgr. Viganò, to oversee the Vatican’s communication efforts. The apostolic letter stated that the Pontifical Council for Social Communications would be incorporated into the Secretariat for Communications, as would the Holy See Press Office, Vatican Internet Service, Vatican Radio, CTV, L'Osservatore Romano, Vatican Typography, Photograph Service, and the Vatican Publishing House (Libreria Editrice Vaticana).