Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said this in an interview with a Portuguese Catholic agency.

Archbishop Paglia said the document will "show that the Church is close to families in all stages of their lives".

"I am convinced that the apostolic exhortation will be a hymn to love, to a love that will care for the well-being of children, that is open to wounded families who need strength, that wants to be close to the elder, a love that the whole of humanity needs," Archbishop Paglia said.

The apostolic exhortation will be the conclusion of a multi-year synod process.

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La Zaretta (The Mosquito) made a phone call last week to Archbishop Vicenzo Paglia, the head of the Pontifical Council for the Family and a lead organiser of the World Meeting of Families held in the US.

A man from the radio station pretended to be Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The prankster inquired how things went at the World Meeting of Families in Philadephia, which was attended by Rome's mayor Ignazio Marino.

During his flight back from the US, Pope Francis had been asked about the mayor's attendance at the event.

Pope Francis lost his usual smile and made it very clear he had not invited the mayor.

"I didn't do it and I asked the organisers and they didn't invite him either. He came. He professes to be a Catholic and he came spontaneously," he said.

Marino has publicly registered some same-sex unions, when Italian law does not recognise them.

In the prank call, Archbishop Paglia was asked how it "really went" in Philadelphia.

"He [Marino] wanted to take advantage of it and this really upset the Number One," Archbishop Paglia said, in an apparent reference to the Pope.

The fake Renzi responded: "He crashed the party?"

To which Archbishop Paglia replied: "Of course he crashed the party. The mayor is a good person, but no one invited him, certainly not officially . . . The Pope was furious."

"When Marino was there he insisted to see him [again and again] and this annoyed the Pope tremendously. Probably Marino needed to be forgiven for something . . . Maybe he's looking for help. But with our guy this doesn't work."

He then added: "Undoubtedly this is a break in the relationship."

Archbishop Paglia added that the mayor looked like a "fool" for wearing his mayoral sash in Philadelphia.

A Vatican spokesman later said that a private conversation does not represent the position of the Holy See.

Sources

• The Guardian
• Image: 3News

An Italian judge ruled Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia was completely uninvolved in a scheme to buy a 14th-century castle and then re-sell it at a profit.

The judge made the decision after a public prosecutor's office filed a motion to dismiss the archbishop from the investigation.

Archbishop Paglia described the judge's decision as "deeply satisfying".

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Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia is being investigated in connection with the sale of the historic San Girolamo castle four years ago.

Two employees of Paglia's former diocese of Terni-Narni-Amelia have been arrested.

Prosecutors are probing Paglia on allegations of criminal conspiracy and fraud in relation to the sale of the castle to real estate company IMI immobiliare, which was headed by one of the arrested diocese employees.

Diocese funds were allegedly used illegally and money was found to be missing from those funds.

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The ceremony will be in Plaza Divino Salvador del Mundo, said Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the chief promoter of the archbishop's sainthood cause.

Archbishop Paglia called the beatification a gift for the world, but particularly for the people of El Salvador.​

In February, Pope Francis paved the way for Archbishop Romero's beatification when he formally decreed that the prelate was assassinated as a martyr for the Catholic faith.

Shot dead while celebrating Mass in 1980, the archbishop has long been considered a saint by many in Latin America, but the official Vatican process had lingered for years.

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The postulator of the archbishop's cause, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, said that Romero's killers wanted "to strike the Church that flowed from the Second Vatican Council".

On February 3, Pope Francis formally recognised that the slain Salvadoran archbishop was killed "in hatred of the faith" and not for purely political reasons.

A right-wing death squad shot Archbishop Romero dead as he celebrated Mass on March 24, 1980.

This was one day after the archbishop gave a sermon calling on soldiers to stop enforcing the El Salvador government's policies of oppression and violations of human rights.

Sources believe it is likely Archbishop Romero will be beatified within five months in El Salvador and will be canonised by 2017.

Archbishop Paglia said the two decades it took to obtain the decree of martyrdom were the result of "misunderstandings and preconceptions".

During Archbishop Romero's time as archbishop of San Salvador - from 1977 to 1980 - "kilos of letters against him arrived in Rome".

"The accusations were simple: He's political; he's a follower of liberation theology."

To the accusations that he supported liberation theology, Archbishop Paglia said, Archbishop Romero responded, "Yes, certainly".

"But there are two theologies of liberation: one sees liberation only as material liberation; the other is that of Paul VI.

"I'm with Paul VI", Archbishop Paglia indicated how Archbishop Romero would have responded, in seeking the material and spiritual liberation of all people.

All the complaints, Archbishop Paglia said, slowed the sainthood process and "strengthened his enemies".

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith examined all Romero's homilies and writings and cleared them.

But the congregation, led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) at the time, told the Congregation for Saints Causes that the process should be put on hold.

There were concerns about the use of Romero's words for political ends and about being seen to endorse political forms of liberation theology.

But Pope Benedict XVI unblocked the process for Archbishop Romero's cause in 2012, having earlier expressed support for his beatification in 2007.

Sources

• The Tablet
• National Catholic Reporter
• Vatican Insider
• Associated Press
• Image: Fox News