VATICAN (CNS): After months of investigation, Vatican police arrested Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella, a former staff member at the Vatican nunciature in Washington DC, on charges related to the possession and distribution of child pornography.
 
On April 9 the Vatican said that the monsignor was taken into custody that morning by the Vatican gendarmes at the request of Vatican City State’s promoter of justice, who serves as chief prosecutor and directs criminal investigations.
 

VATICAN (CNS): After a very public controversy involving the use of a letter by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Monsignor Dario Vigano as prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for Communication in March 21.
 
The controversy began on March 12 at the presentation of The Theology of Pope Francis, an 11-volume series of books (Sunday Examiner, March 18), when Monsignor Vigano read selected sentences from a letter from Pope Benedict.
 

VATICAN (CNS): The Vatican hosed a fast-paced gathering of students, developers and entrepreneurs from around the world from March 8 to 11 looking to find high-tech solutions for complex global issues.
 
The conference, VHacks: A hackathon at the Vatican, examined issues such as the migrant and refugee crisis, and focused on viewing matters from a different perspective, said Jesuit Father Michael Czerny, undersecretary of the Migrants and Refugee Section of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
 

VATICAN (CNS): Pope Francis has named nine new members to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and reappointed seven, including abuse survivors or the parents of survivors, the Vatican announced on February 17.
 
However, in respecting “the right of each person to disclose their experiences of abuse publicly or not to do so the members appointed today have chosen not do so publicly, but solely within the commission.” the commission said.
 

ROME (CNS): Even though the Catholic Church has all the necessary norms and laws in place to safeguard minors from abuse by clergy, the problem continues to be a lack in understanding or caring about those rules and guidelines and applying them effectively, said one Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, head of the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection.
 
What must change are Church procedures for handling accusations of abuse, he said.
 

VATICAN (Agencies): In a first, the Vatican has been invited to attend the February 5 to 7 annual general meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as an official observer, in Pyeongchang, South Korea, L’Osservatore Romano reported on February 2. 
 
The delegation, led by Monsignor Melchor Sanchez de Toca Alameda, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture and head of its Culture and Sport section, will also be present at the opening ceremony of the Winter Games which run from February 9 to 25.