Pope's Glamorous Aide Francesca Chaouqui Ruffling Vatican Feathers

By John Follain
The Australian
August 19, 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/popes-glamorous-aide-francesca-chaouqui-ruffling-vatican-feathers/story-fnb64oi6-1226699478951

WITH her film-star looks, flowing hair and leather jacket provocatively unzipped, Francesca Chaouqui cuts an unusual figure alongside the elderly men who run the Catholic church.

But when the 27-year-old public relations consultant was appointed to a key Vatican commission last month, the step was hailed as a symbol of Pope Francis's determination to bring in fresh blood.

Last week, however, the unconventional choice turned into an embarrassment for the Argentine Pontiff as attention focused on a series of tweets sent from Ms Chaouqui's account in the months before her nomination - including one in which Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, was labelled as "corrupt".

The row has exposed a Vatican power-struggle appearing to pit the Pope, whose vision is of "a poor church, for the poor", against the Roman Curia, the bureaucracy that has been tainted by scandals over corruption, pedophilia and cronyism.