It's one of my favorite subjects: In 2019, when I traveled to Rome to report on the Vatican's historic summit on preventing sexual abuse, I carved out time to interview Lucetta Scaraffia (pictured) the firebrand historian and journalist who founded Women Church World, the Vatican women's magazine, and who, just weeks after our interview, resigned her position—along with the entire editorial board—in protest of alleged censorship.

The stories Ms. Scaraffia shared with me, both at the time and in an interview last year, were disturbing: She described nuns who moved to Rome from faraway countries and who were made to work in the homes of bishops and cardinals with little to no pay; in some cases, they were sexually abused.

Ms. Scaraffia said that when she tried to report on this, a senior Vatican official told her not to publish the story. So she resigned, and her reporting was pulled from the Vatican website.

I've often said that as a Catholic feminist covering the Vatican, I cannot wait until it is no longer newsworthy when women take on greater leadership roles in the church, but it is de rigeur.

What allegedly happened to these women exemplifies the most abhorrent ends of the church's centuries-long clericalist culture, the result of centuries of sexism that erased St. Mary Magdalene's role in three of the four Gospels as the first messenger of the Resurrection and made proclaiming the Gospel at Mass a right exclusively held by men.

It's a culture that has been slowly chipped away at by female mystics like Teresa of Ávila, who told the women in her reformed Carmelite communities facing the Inquisition, "Since the world's judges are sons of Adam and all of them men, there is no virtue in women that they do not hold suspect."

In more recent years, reforms that recognize the power of women to evangelize, lead communities and even govern church offices have gained pace.

Only a hundred years ago, the first lay woman was employed at the Vatican; this week, the new Constitution for the Roman Curia declared that "any member of the faithful may preside over a Department or Body, given their particular competence, power and governance or function," which has widely been interpreted to mean that a woman could run any Vatican office, except perhaps the Dicasteries for Clergy and Bishops.

Previously, many top roles of prefect and secretary were limited to priests or cardinals; the new constitution bears no such limitations.

Clarifying the document at a Vatican press conference March 21, one of its writers said that the "power of governance in the church does not come from the sacrament of [Holy] Orders" but from a mission given by the pope.

It remains to be seen, of course, how this plays out and who is actually appointed to such posts.

Source

• America Magazine
• Image: La Voce del Popolo

In the final editorial and open letter to Pope Francis, released to news media ahead of the magazine's 1 April publication, chief editor Lucetta Scaraffia complains of feeling "surrounded by a climate of distrust and progressive de-legitimization."

So far, there has been no comment about the letter from the Vatican.

The glossy monthly is listed on Vatican daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano's website as one of its eight published sections.

Since Women Church World's inception - first as a supplement in 2012 and then as a magazine in 2016 - L'Osservatore has offered Scaraffia editorial freedom.

According to a 2016 edition of L'Osservatore, the magazine would "delve into the role of women in the Church" with editorial independence.

In February this year Scaraffia denounced the sexual abuse of nuns by clergy and the resulting scandal of religious sisters having abortions or giving birth to children who are not recognized by their fathers.

The article prompted Francis to acknowledge, for the first time, that abuse of nuns is a problem and that he is committed to doing something about it.

Also in February, L'Osservatore's new editor Andrea Monda said he would also take over as editor of the women's magazine. (Monda became editor of L'Osservatore last December.)

However Scaraffia says Monda 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 it.

"After the attempts to put us under control, came the indirect attempts to delegitimize us," she says.

Monda says he did not interfere "in any way" in the printing of the monthly magazine but only suggested topics and persons for the publication.

He also says he guaranteed the magazine "complete autonomy" and "total freedom," and its budget had been confirmed.

Scaraffia disagrees.

Women were brought in to write for L'Osservatore "with an editorial line opposed to ours," she says.

Scaraffia says that resulted in obscuring the magazine's words, "de-legitimizing us as a part of the Holy See's communications.

The Vatican is "returning to the practice of selecting women [writers] who ensure obedience," to a "clerical self-reference" that surrenders "parrhesia (freedom to speak freely) that Pope Francis so often seeks.

"We are throwing in the towel because we feel surrounded by a climate of distrust and progressive de-legitimization," Scaraffia says.

Thanking Scaraffia for her "valuable work," Monda says "in no way" did he choose anyone "with the criterion of obedience" but rather with "the sign of the openness and parrhesia requested by Pope Francis, with whose words and with whose Magisterium we all identify."

Source

• Daily Mail
• La Croix
• CBS News
• National Catholic Register
• Image: Washington Post

Scaraffia says the "implacable and pitiless" nature of the coverage is "born from disappointment."

In her view, in societies affected by the sexual revolution, this disappointment stems not so much from the discovery of "the sexual infraction or human weakness" but from the discovery of the abuse of power, cover-ups and inaction against perpetrators.

"There are one or more news items about the church in various regions of the world nearly every day," Scaraffia said.

Rather than publishing news about the many initiatives for aid and assistance (to victims) and backing the justice system, the media prefers to focus on cases of sexual abuse that have been scandalously covered up through silence and 'omerta,'" she said.

Scaraffia appealed to readers to not target their anger at the media, even when the media took pleasure in examining the sexual behaviour of the clergy.

Instead, readers should be venting their distress on the problem of sexual abuse and the cover-up by the church hierarchy, she said.

"We should not look at this wave of media interest as a malevolent attack on the institution.

"There is a real scandal involved, which is not so much a matter of sexual transgression as an abuse of power, followed by silence and a lack of sanctions against those responsible as well as a silence and impunity that humiliates victims.

"The media with their polls and interviews force those who seek to cover up and forget to do the right thing, to remember that victims have a dignity that needs to be respected and protected," she said.

Source

• La Croix
• Catholic Culture
• Image: 10Donna

A collection of 40 short essays by Catholic women, titled Catholic Women Speak: Bringing Our Gifts to the Table, is to be launched in Rome on October 1.

Pope Francis has appointed 30 women to attend the synod as auditors, making contributions to the discussions, but only the 279 male members of the meetings can vote.

The collection of essays is the fruit of a yearlong online networking project to connect Catholic women from around the globe.

Italian historian Lucetta Scaraffia said: "The absence of women's perspectives at times of reflection on these issues is not only an act of disdain toward women, who make up more than half of religious and believers, it is also an impoverishment of Catholic life."

Ms Scaraffia is one of the auditors at the synod to be held next month.

She also edits a monthly edition of the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano, dedicated to women's issues.

The women in the essay collection deal with issues like same-sex marriage, divorce and remarriage and widespread use of contraception.

But they also discuss issues like struggles faced in interfaith marriages, specific challenges for women in Africa and Latin America, and the impact poverty has on women.

In their introduction, the editors of the new volume state: "The hierarchy . . . speaks about us, but seldom with us.".

Citing Francis's call in 2013 for the Church to study a theology of womanhood, the editors say "such comments reduce women to objects of study, a separate category of reflection".

"We resist . . . any suggestion that the Church needs a theology of 'Woman' or 'womanhood,'" they continued.

"Rather than a deeper theology of women, we say that the Church needs a deeper theology of the human . . . "

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Strange Notions

Journalist-historian Lucetta Scaraffia is campaigning for women's rights in the male-dominated Vatican and pushing for women to teach in seminaries to give future priests the social and cultural skills to help them handle celibacy.

In an interview with AFP, Scaraffia said the new women's supplement she edits in the 150-year-old Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has ruffled feathers, despite having the support of Pope Benedict XVI.

"There are those who say ‘I have not read it'," said the 64-year-old journalist. "They don't want to say it's not good. They prefer to say ‘it doesn't interest me'. The indifference is terrible."

But, she added: "It was the Pope who decided to have women work at L'Osservatore Romano."

Scaraffia, who lost her faith in the 1960s and became an ardent feminist, returned to the Church 20 years ago.

"There is misogyny in the Church," she said. "It's a closed world, caught up with issues of power. Many in the clergy are afraid that if women come onto the scene there will be less room for them."

Scaraffia also believes the Pope Benedict is changing attitudes to Church scandals by tackling the Holy See's long-standing policy of secrecy.

The Pope "is very alone and has a very difficult papacy because all the problems which were hidden have now come to light...problems which took root in the Church 30 or 50 years ago," she said.

"He has the courage to see things as they are," she said.

"We have always covered scandals up, he lets them come to light. Many people believe it is better to hide things. He says the Church is not protected by silence," she added.

"He thinks that, for purification, there needs to be shame."

Source:

Agence France-Presse

Image: Alleporteditalia