Pope Francis established the Secretariat for Communication in June 2015,[1][2] with Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, former director of the Vatican Television Center, as its first prefect.[3] Viganò resigned on 21 March 2018, "a week after his mishandling of a letter from retired Pope Benedict XVI provoked a global outcry".[4]
On 23 June 2018, the secretariat was renamed as the Dicastery for Communication,[5] and on 5 July 2018, Pope Francis appointed award-winning lay journalist Paolo Ruffini as prefect. He was the first layman named to head a Vatican dicastery.[6] Ruffini also chairs the Commission for Information of the Sixteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.[7]
