ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press
March 26, 2019
By Nicole Winfield
The founder and all-female editorial board of the Vatican’s women’s magazine have quit after what they say was a Vatican campaign to discredit them and put them “under the direct control of men,” that only increased after they denounced the sexual abuse of nuns by clergy.
The editorial committee of “Women Church World,” a monthly glossy published alongside the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, made the announcement in the planned April 1 editorial and in an open letter to Pope Francis that was provided Tuesday to The Associated Press.
“We are throwing in the towel because we feel surrounded by a climate of distrust and progressive de-legitimization,” founder Lucetta Scaraffia wrote in the editorial, which went to the printers last week but hasn’t been published.
Scaraffia told the AP that the decision was taken after the new editor of L’Osservatore, Andrea Monda, told her earlier this year he would take over as editor. She said he reconsidered after the editorial board threatened to resign and the Catholic weeklies that distribute translations of “Women Church World” in France, Spain and Latin America, told her they would stop distributing.
“After the attempts to put us under control, came the indirect attempts to delegitimize us,” she said, citing other women brought in to write for L’Osservatore “with an editorial line opposed to ours.”
The effect, she said, was to “obscure our words, delegitimizing us as a part of the Holy See’s communications.”
There was no immediate comment Tuesday from the Vatican.
Scaraffia launched the monthly insert in 2012 and oversaw its growth into a stand-alone Vatican magazine as a voice for women, by women and about issues of interest to the entire Catholic Church. “Women Church World” had enjoyed editorial independence from L’Osservatore, even while being published under its auspices.
In the final editorial, the editorial board said the “conditions no longer exist” to continue working with L’Osservatore, citing its initiatives with other women contributors.
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