Pope Francis today recruited a veteran Vatican diplomat to be his top aide, replacing the Holy See's secretary of state who in recent years increasingly became a divisive figure in a church hierarchy mired in embarrassing scandal and financial probes.
The Vatican announced that Archbishop Pietro Parolin, 58, an Italian and former deputy foreign minister at the Vatican, on October 15 will assume the post held since 2006 by Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. The cardinal will remain in the position until then, giving the Archbishop, currently serving as papal envoy to Venezuela, time to prepare for his new duties as the Vatican's second-ranked official.
Pope Benedict XVI, who retired as pontiff earlier this year, had relied heavily on Cardinal Bertone as one of the few advisers in his inner circle. Cardinal Bertone, a Genoa archbishop, had served the German pope for many years at the Vatican.
The Vatican noted that Cardinal Bertone, 78, was retiring under a church law that requires cardinals who hold top curia posts to offer their resignations when they turn 75. Pope Benedict had kept him in place, reportedly to the irritation of a rival faction of Vatican bureaucrats loyal to Cardinal Bertone's predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a former long-time secretary of state.
A scandal during the latter years of Pope Benedict XVI's papacy involving the theft of papal documents and embarrassing revelations of alleged corruption and power plays at the Vatican was widely seen as aiming to discredit Cardinal Bertone.
Some speculate that the scandal contributed to Pope Benedict's conclusion that he himself no longer had the mental or physical strength to guide the Catholic church. He stepped down in February, the first pope in 600 years to resign.
Most of the documents, leaked by Pope Benedict's butler to an Italian journalist, were of interest only to Italians, a reflection of centuries of dominance and intrigue by Italians in the Vatican. The purloined papal papers concerned relations between Italy and the Vatican, and a few local scandals and personalities.
The main aim of the disclosures apparently was to make Cardinal Bertone seem incompetent, unable to control the curia and unable to protect Pope Pope Benedict, a theologian with little apparent skill for navigating the political manoeuvring around him.
Pope Francis will hold a special audience on October 15, the Vatican said, "in order publicly to thank Cardinal Bertone for his faithful and generous service to the Holy See".
Archbishop Parolin, when deputy foreign minister, shuttled between Rome and Hanoi in a partly successful bid to improve decades of thorny relations between the Vatican and the communist leadership of Vietnam.
In 2009, the Archbishop told reporters in Hanoi that the Holy See and Vietnam had created a "good basis" for eventually establishing diplomatic relations. After the Philippines, Vietnam has one of Asia's largest communities of Catholics.
The incoming number two, a native of north east Italy, began his diplomatic career at the Vatican in 1986, and served in papal missions in Nigeria and Mexico. He was posted to Venezuela as papal nuncio in 2009.
In a statement, the Archbishop pledged that he would give Pope Francis his "complete availability to work with him and under his guidance for the greater glory of God, the good of the holy Church and the progress and peace" so humanity might find "reasons to live and hope."
It was under Cardinal Bertone's tenure that the curia was rocked by financial probes, including investigations by Italian prosecutors suspecting that the Vatican bank was being used for money laundering.
A Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said Cardinal Bertone would continue to keep other responsibilities he holds, including heading a commission of cardinals monitoring Vatican bank operations. Last year, the bank's president, an Italian banker, was ousted from his post in a bid to reform the Vatican's troubled financial operations.
Pope Francis also confirmed other prominent officials in their positions. They included Monsignor Georg Ganswein, Pope Benedict's longtime secretary and confidant, who will continue serving as prefect of the papal household. Those confirmations seemed to indicate that, at least for now, Pope Francis was not set on drastically overhauling the hierarchy he inherited when elected pontiff in March, becoming the first pope from Latin America.
Mgr Ganswein also still assists Pope Benedict, who lives in a monastery on the Vatican City grounds where the retired pontiff says he wants to spend his last years in prayer and meditation.