(AP) — The head of the Vatican’s communications department resigned Wednesday after he mischaracterized a private letter from retired Pope Benedict XVI, then had a photo of it digitally manipulated and sent out to the media.
A week after The Associated Press exposed the doctored photo, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Monsignor Dario Vigano and named his deputy to run the Secretariat for Communications for now. But Francis kept Vigano on in the department in a lesser capacity, indicating that he doesn’t believe the problem was all that grave.
The so-called “Lettergate” scandal erupted last week when Vigano read aloud part of a private letter from Benedict at a book launch for a Vatican-published, 11-volume set of books about Francis’ theology.
