Six news editors have left the Zenit news agency since the forced resignation of editor-in-chief, Jesús Colina. They have resigned in protest at the interference from the publisher, the Legionaries of Christ.
The six foreign language news editors, Karna Swanson, English; Gisele Plantec, French; Inma Alvarez, Spanish; Mirko Testa, Italian; Alexandre Ribeiro, Portuguese; Tony Assaf, Arabic, announced “… with deep regret our decision to leave the agency after many years of service to the Church and to all the agency’s readers.”
“After years of fruitful collaboration with the Legionaries of Christ, we disagree with the decision of the congregation to underline the institutional dependence of the agency on the Legion. The initial vision of Zenit was never to make it a service of a particular congregation, but rather of the universal Church. This has been the spirit with which we have worked throughout the years, and we could not betray this spirit now. We warmly thank all our readers for their loyalty and support throughout the years, and we hope to be able to continue to work for the Church and for all those who seek the truth, in another manner, but always with the same spirit.”
Last week, Zenit’s founder, Jesús Colina resigned citing the disagreement on “administrative transparency” with the Legion of Christ and the affair involving the founder of the Legion of Christ, the late Mexican priest, Marcial Maciel – who the Vatican established to be a paedophile, a drug addict and who had fathered a number of children with various women.
“Father Marcial Maciel’s conduct and the way in which the congregation informed us of this, concealing important facts, has often led to us not carrying out our duty of providing information that is in line with the Pope and the Holy See’s vision, fully.”
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