The unusual case of the massive resignation in the women's magazine of L & # 39; Osservatore

(ANSA) – The complete editorial of the monthly women's magazine L & # 39; Osservatore Romano Renunci and her director, Lucetta Scaraffia, attributed it to the "climate of distrust and progressive delegitimization" created by the new authorities.

The historian, journalist and writer told adis to her child, the publication "Woman, World, Church", in an editorial – scheduled for the April edition – and a letter to Pope Francis. "I hope you've read it," he says. With Scaraffia, the 10 publishers who contributed each month, seven years ago, to the publication of notes, articles, reflections on the Catholic world and relations with women.

Last February, the magazine published a story about women religious victims of abuse by clergy, some of whom were forced to abort or give birth to an unrecognized son. Last year, she denounced the exploitation suffered by nuns who work for bishops and cardinals, who treat her as a maid.

The new director of the Holy See's newspaper, Andrea Monda, who took office in December, rejected these accusations and declared that he had "guaranteed" to the entire editorial "the same total autonomy and the same freedom total that characterized the monthly publication since .. I was born without getting involved with anything ".

In the editorial, Scaraffia has claimed her autonomy, denouncing "the election of women who comes from above", "the election of collaborators who ensure obedience" "renouncing "to any possibility to open a real dialogue, free and courageous, between women loving the Church in freedom and the men who are part of it".

He also accused Monda of having introduced into the pages of the Osservatore "collaborations and initiatives that seem to compete, having the effect of confronting a woman with the other instead of promoting clashes. open ". "My commitment was and remains to promote the daily edition of L'Osservatore Romano – not in terms of competition, but in addition to the supplement – as it is natural and just as it is", said the director.

"Do not choose in any way a person, man or woman, with the criterion of obedience, on the contrary, avoiding to interfere with the monthly supplement, ask the realization of the agenda a dialogue really free, not built on the mechanism of those who would counter them, others or closed groups, "said Monda, who ensured the continuity of the monthly. "His story is not interrupted but continues without clericalism," he added. "Woman, Church, World" was born in 2012, at the initiative of Scaraffia and enthusiastically received by Giovanni Maria Vian, predecessor of Monda, supported initially by Benedict XVI and Francisco later.

In seven years, he tackled various topics, ranging from politics to science, promoting reflections in the Catholic world to the point of translating them into Spanish, French and English. Regarding the abuses reported, the director wrote in the letter to the pope: "It was not us who spoke first, as we could have done." We did not want to be silent: the confidence that so many women had placed in us would have been badly hurt. it seems to us that a vital initiative is being silenced and that she is turning to the old stubborn habit of choosing from above, under direct male control, women considered reliable. "