SW News: An Italian priest, who is a noted author and a popular guest on radio and TV shows, has been appointed as an ecclesiastical assistant to the Vatican’s communications department. Fr Luigi Maria Epicoco from Puglia in southern Italy was given the new responsibility by Pope Francis on Wednesday, June 16.
The 40-year-old priest will also be a columnist for L’Osservatore Romano, the newspaper of the Vatican, in his new capacity.

He has penned more than 20 books and one of them titled “Someone to Look To: For a Spirituality of Witness” was gifted by the Holy Father to members of the Roman Curia during his annual Christmas speech in December 2019.

A priest of the Archdiocese of L’Aquila since 2005, Fr Epicoco was the university chaplain when the area was hit by the 2009 earthquake which claimed more than 300 lives. In 2020, the priest supervised the publication of a book in Italian on Pope St John Paul featuring the pontiff’s reflections on his Polish predecessor.

In 2015, Pope Francis began a major reform of the communications department. This dicastery oversees all the media operations of the Holy See, including Vatican News, Vatican Radio, L’Osservatore Romano and the Vatican Publishing House.