The daily bollettino from the Press Office of the Holy See on June 5 announced the nomination of a new Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication: the 62-year-old Neapolitan journalist and editor, Paolo Ruffini. The nomination is significant for several reasons, not the least of which is that Ruffini is a layman. Ruffini has decades of experience in both secular and ecclesiastical news media. The biographical sketch from the Press Office notes that he has been a professional journalist since 1979.
He also trained as a lawyer, graduating with a degree from the Faculty of Jurisprudence of Rome’s prestigious La Sapienza University — where he wrote his dissertation on freedom of the press.
