A Vatican court has convicted the former president of the Pope's children's hospital of diverting around £378,000 in donations to renovate a cardinal's flat.

Pope Francis today recruited a veteran Vatican diplomat to be his top aide, replacing the Holy See’s secretary of state who in recent years increasingly became a divisive figure in a church hierarchy mired in embarrassing scandal and financial probes.

The Vatican has blamed the media for fuelling the scandal over leaked documents and insisted there were no power struggles or problems of unity in the Holy See's governance.

THE Vatican yesterday expressed deep concern over a possible new scandal set off by an African archbishop who announced he was championing the cause of married priests in the Roman Catholic Church.