News / 

Pope names private secretary to No. 2 econ spot


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: Less than a minute

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Francis has once again made politics personal, tapping his own private secretary to be the No. 2 in the Vatican's new economy secretariat.

Monsignor Alfred Xuereb had been the deputy private secretary to Pope Benedict XVI and stayed on to become Francis' main aide when Benedict retired.

On Monday, the Vatican announced that Francis had named the Maltese Xuereb as the secretary-general of the Economy Secretariat headed by Australian Cardinal George Pell. The finance ministry was created last week in the first major overhaul of the Vatican's outdated and inefficient bureaucracy in a quarter-century.

Previously, Francis has placed trusted friends in powerful positions at the scandal-plagued Vatican bank and in other key Vatican offices, and recently elevated some longtime colleagues from Latin America as cardinals.

(Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Most recent News stories

NICOLE WINFIELD

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast