Pope Francis on Thursday tapped a long-time logistics coordinator to serve as the Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, ending the interim appointment of Alessandro Gisotti, effective Monday, July 22.

Gisotti will now be vice-Editorial Director under Andrea Tornielli at the Dicastery for Communication, along with another old hand at the former Vatican Radio, Sergio Centofanti.

The replacement of Gisotti did not come as a surprise.

From the day the 45-year-old former Vatican Radio journalist took the reins after former Director Greg Burke had suddenly dropped on the last day of last year, his appointment had been couched as ad interim.

They said it and he meant it. Anyone who knows Gisotti has no trouble believing him when he says both that it was a tremendous honour to be tapped for the job, and that he would be happy to put it down. Read more

The empty tomb in the cemetery of the Pontifical Teutonic College was supposedly the last resting places of two 19th-century German princesses, Princess Sophie von Hohenlohe and Duchess Charlotte Frederica.

According to a tipoff, the tomb also supposedly housed the remains of 15 year-old Emanuela Orlandi.

Not only were the princesses' remains absent from the tomb, there was no sign of Orlandi's remains there either.

However, it is thought the bones in the stone slab probably belong to the German princesses. The slab will be formally opened this week.

The Vatican has promised to keep investigating Orlandi's disappearance.

It also noted that any bones in the tombs might have been displaced during structural work carried out on both the college building and a cemetery near St. Peter's Basilica in the 1800s and in more recent decades.

Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti says the area where the bones were found was immediately sealed off. It will be opened in the presence of forensic experts later this week.

Gisotti says the bones were found in two holes carved out of a large stone that was covered by an old pavement stone a few meters behind the princesses' tombs.

That area is now technically inside a building of the Teutonic College, after expansion work on the building encroached onto the cemetery field.

The last recorded structural work done on the building and the cemetery was in the 1960s and 1970s. Orlandi disappeared in 1983.

The mystery of Orlandi's disappearance has been kept alive by the Italian media and her brother Pietro Orlandi's quest to find answers.

Pietro Orlandi has long demanded the Vatican give the family full access to all information it has about his sister's disappearance.

The family's lawyer, Laura Sgro, says she had been informed of the discovery of the bones on Saturday and that the family was pleased the investigation was continuing.

Gisotti says the Holy See "has always shown attention and closeness to the suffering of the Orlandi family and in particular Emanuela's mother".

Its decision to excavate the Teutonic cemetery at the family's request was evidence of that attention, he says.

Orlandi's disappearance has been one of Italy's biggest unsolved mysteries and the subject of international intrigue, including suspicion about the Vatican's role, since it occurred.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• AP News
• Image: Reuters

Alessandro Gisotti, a Vatican spokesman, says a 2017 document synthesised a decade's worth of procedures and that its "fundamental principle" was the "protection of the child".

The document is for internal use only.

Gisotti explains the rules say a priest who fathered a child would be requested to leave the priesthood. After this the priest would be expected to "assume his responsibility as a parent, dedicating himself exclusively to the child".

However, Monsignor Andrea Ripa, who is the under-secretary in the Congregation for the Clergy which oversees more than 400,000 priests, says "it is impossible to impose" the dismissal of the priest.

Instead, leaving the priesthood "can only be asked" for by the priest.

Having said that, Ripa added that the failure to ask to be relieved of priestly obligations was reason for the church to take action: "If you don't ask, you will be dismissed."

He added the guidelines are more of a formality than an order.

The tradition of celibacy among Roman Catholic clergy was broadly codified in the 12th century, but not necessarily adhered to, even in the highest places.

Rodrigo Borgia, while a priest, had four children with his mistress before he became Pope Alexander VI, an excess that helped spur Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation.

Luther wrote mockingly that the pope had as much command over celibacy as "the natural movement of the bowels."

The number of children born to priests is unknown although one support group, Coping International, has 50,000 users in 175 countries.

Source

• New York Times
• The Guardian
• CNN
• Image: Epic Pew