VATICAN CITY (AP) — A married couple who had been fired from the Vatican bank for violating an internal rule barring workplace marriages has been rehired in a negotiated settlement, the union for Vatican lay employees announced Wednesday.
Silvia Carlucci and Domenico Fabiani filed a wrongful termination lawsuit in January, some four months after they were married. The union called the settlement “a victory of common sense,” though it did not say when they would resume working, or in which Vatican office they would be working.
The couple, who came to the marriage with three children between them, said they never considered calling off their Aug. 31, 2024 nuptials after learning of the new regulation. The bank suggested one of them quit, but the couple said they could not afford to due to financial obligations to their children, former spouses and a new mortgage.
The union said the victory was not complete, since Vatican procedures do not foresee the reimbursement of legal fees for the prevailing party.
“The emblematic case of Silvia and Domenico suggests that the application of labor law needs more solid foundations,’’ the union said in a statement posted on its website.
It noted that there were no social nets to support the couple during the period they were fighting for reinstatement, and underlined that the regulation that led to the couple’s dismissal would be deemed unconstitutional in Italy.
The couple has not commented publicly on the settlement, but they told The Associated Press when they filed the lawsuit that they had hoped for an intervention by the late Pope Francis, who was pontiff at the time, given his emphasis on family values.
FILE - Silvia Carlucci, right, and Domenico Fabiani, two employees who were fired by the Vatican Bank in October 2024, after their wedding violated a ban on workplace marriage attend an interview with The Associated Press in Rome, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's owners announced Wednesday the paper will be shutting down in a few months, citing financial losses.
Block Communications Inc. announced it will cease publication on May 3. The paper is printed on Thursdays and Sundays and says on its website the average paid circulation is 83,000.
A couple dozen union members returned to work at the Post-Gazette in November after a three-year strike.
More than five years ago, the newspaper declared it had reached a bargaining impasse with the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh and unilaterally imposed terms and conditions of employment on those workers. The paper was later found to have bargained in bad faith by making offers that were not intended to help reach a deal and by declaring an impasse prematurely.
The announcement that Block was shutting it down came on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court declined the PG Publishing Co. Inc.'s emergency appeal to halt an National Labor Relations Board order that forced it to abide by health care coverage policies in an expired union contract.
Andrew Goldstein, president of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, said the paper’s journalists have a long history of award-winning work.
“Instead of simply following the law, the owners chose to punish local journalists and the city of Pittsburgh,” Goldstein said. The union said employees were notified in a video on Zoom in which company officials did not speak live.
The Post-Gazette said Block Communications has lost hundreds of millions of dollars over two decades in operating the paper, and the company said it deemed “continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable.”
The Block family said in a statement it was “proud of the service the Post-Gazette has provided to Pittsburgh for nearly a century.”
A phone message seeking comment was left Wednesday at Block Communications headquarters in Toledo, Ohio.
The paper traces its roots to 1786, when the Pittsburgh Gazette began as a four-page weekly, and became a leading advocate for the abolition of slavery in the 19th century. It went through a series of mastheads and owners before 1927, when Paul Block obtained the paper and named it the Post-Gazette.
FILE - Cars are parked near the building where the offices of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Feb. 14, 2019, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)
FILE - People walk past the building where the offices of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Feb. 14, 2019, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette logo is displayed on the newspaper's Pittsburgh office Wednesday, Jan 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
