Vatican spokesman, deputy resign amid crisis period for pope

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican spokesman, Greg Burke, and his deputy resigned abruptly today amid an overhaul of the Vatican's communications operations and a crisis period in Pope Francis' papacy.

The departures of Burke and his deputy, Paloma Garcia Ovejero, signaled that problems associated with Francis' reform of the Vatican bureaucracy came to a head at a bad time. The pope is struggling to address a global sex abuse and cover-up scandal.

Francis nevertheless accepted the resignations, which are effective Tuesday, the Vatican said in a statement.

"At this time of transition in Vatican communications, we think it's best the Holy Father is completely free to assemble a new team," Burke tweeted. "New Year, New Adventures."

He and Garcia both thanked the pope. "One stage is ending. Thank you for these two and a half years," Garcia tweeted.

Francis named a longtime member of the Vatican's communications operations, Alessandro Gisotti, as an interim replacement. No deputy was named.

The pope recently overhauled the Vatican's media operations for the second time by ousting the longtime editor of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, and naming a new director of editorial content for all Vatican media, Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli.

The resignations appeared to take the new team by surprise, though the job of Vatican spokesman is notoriously difficult given the feudal nature of the Vatican, its reflexive tendency toward secrecy and occasional skepticism of journalism.

The head of Vatican communications, Paolo Ruffini, said he had learned of the decision by Burke and Garcia and respected it.

He praised their professionalism and said he had full confidence in Gisotti, who had been a longtime journalist with Vatican Radio and more recently the head of social media for the Vatican.

"The year ahead is full of important appointments that will require maximum communications efforts," Ruffini said in a statement.