Pope Appoints Ecclesiastical Assistant of the Dicastery for Communication

Father Luigi Maria Epicoco, Columnist of L’Osservatore Romano

Pope Francis appointed Father Luigi Maria Epicoco of the clergy of the Archdiocese of L’Aquila, Italy, and columnist of L’Osservatore Romano, Ecclesiastical Assistant of the Dicastery for Communication, reported on Wednesday, June 16, 2021, the Holy See Press Office.

Father Luigi Maria Epicoco

According to Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University, Father Epicoco is a priest of the diocese of L’Aquila. He is Dean and Professor of Theoretical Philosophy in the ISSR Fides et Ratio. He has a Licentiate in Philosophy and Moral Theology. At present he is parish priest of the University of L’Aquila and Director of the Saint Charles Borromeo University Residence. He is also Director of the ISSR’s theological Review Fedelmente.

Dicastery for Communication


The Holy See states that the Secretariat for Communication was instituted by Pope Francis with the Apostolic Letter in the form of a Motu Proprio “The Present Context of Communication,” dated June 27, 2015. This new Dicastery of the Roman Curia has been entrusted with the task to restructure — through a process of reorganization and grouping–, all the realities that, in different ways, have been concerned with communication up to today,” in order to “respond better to the needs of the mission of the Church.” In this way it is intended to rethink the Holy See’s communication system.

Thanks to this restructuring, the Apostolic See will be able to use the Dicastery as a unitary reference for communication, increasingly complex and interdependent in the present media scenario. The realities involved in this process are: the Vatican Television Center, the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, L’Osservatore Romano, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Vatican Radio, the Holy See Press Office, the Photographic Service, the Vatican Internet Service and the Vatican Typography.

Meanwhile, these organizations, which will be unified in keeping with the pre-established times, will continue to carry out their own activities, following now the indications given by the Secretariat for Communication. With the mentioned Motu Proprio, the Holy Father has also decided that the new Dicastery should assume, in keeping with the State Secretariat, “the institutional Website of the Holy See: www.vatican.va and the Supreme Pontiff’s Twitter service: @pontifex.”