Was the OR editor behind
the campaign that resulted
in Boffo leaving 'Avvenire'?
In his blog entry today, Sandro Magister reproduces much of an article in today's
Il Foglio, in which
Il Giornale editor Vittorio Feltri tells the newspaper edited by Giuliano Ferrara that his Page 1 accusation against the then-editor of
Avvenire Dino Boffo in September last year - which Feltri subsequently retracted on December 3 in his newspaper, three months after his false accusation had forced Boffo to resign his three positions as the head of the Italian bishop's conference newspaper, radio and television network - was based on information he received from an 'institutional' source in the Church whom he had 'no reason to doubt'.
Neither Feltri nor
Il Foglio identifies this source by name - except to say the emissary who provided the documents Feltri based his charges on represented "a lobby that availed of the naivete of the editor of
L'Osservatore Romano".
But Magister's headline to his blog entry reads:
'Feltri strikes again: Yesterday, it was Boffo, now it's Vian', editor of
L'Osservatore Romano. [Quite a concatenation of newspapers involved! Not to mention that Magister writes for
L'Espresso, under which he publishes both
www.chiesa and his blog.]
In a blog last December, Magister had also claimed that Vian was the real author of a Sept. 19, 2009, article written for
Il Giornale, Feltri's paper, under the pseudonym Diana Alfieri,
more than two weeks after Boffo's resignation, in which the writer defended Feltri's accusation and attacked the Italian bishops conference not only for standing up for Boffo, but for having kept him on for 15 years 'despite questions about his moral qualifications'. [Feltri's allegations openly called Boffo a homosexual and falsely attributed a homosexual basis to a minor court case for which Boffo was fined.]
Magister's claim has never been denied by Vian, Il Giornale or any representative of Vian. But perhaps they just did not want to be further involved in the polemics.
Magister concludes today's blog entry with these words:
Readers of www.chiesa and 'Settimo cielo' have been able to follow the developments in this case. Including the revelatory account of the article signed by 'Diana Alfieri' in the 9/19/09 issue of Il Giornale whose real author was Vian.
What Feltri tells Il Foglio in today's article thus confirms that the anti-Boffo operation, which was also against Avvenire and definitely against the line followed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini (during his 15-year-long presidency of the CEI) was born inside the Church itself, to strike against targets within the Church.
Now we have come to the final 'accounting' for this whole episode. The Pope's newspaper is on the carpet, in the person of its editor, and Vatican officials, especially the Secretariat of State [under which L'Osservatore Romano is a department], cannot continue pretending as if they were out of this.
The countdown has started and a TKO appears to be the most logical outcome.
Magister also refers in his blog entry to an article by Il Foglio's Vaticanista Paolo Rodari on Jan. 23, who claimed that when Cardinal Ruini had a private audience with the Pope last January 8, he took the opportunity to give the Pope a comprehensive background on the Boffo case and what came afterwards. And that this background information included all the pressures and 'lobbying' efforts on the part of some in the Vatican itself to undermine the CEI and its media outlets. Of course, as expected, Cardinal Ruini issued a statement next day denying the account of what he had discussed with the Pope.
It is true that Magister has not always been happy with certain moves and decisions taken by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as Secretary of State (beginning with an article back in 2007 entitled 'The man who should be helping the Pope but isn't'), particularly his seemingly high-handed and unwarranted attempt at a 'power grab' from the Italian bishops conference the moment a new president was named by the Pope to replace Cardinal Ruini.
But, as I noted about Cardinal Bagnasco earlier this week, he hasn't proven to be a pushover for Bertone and has managed to run his ship autonomously so far, and that Bertone himself has apparently stopped pushing, not overtly, at least.
Of course, Bertone has been responsible - on the principle of 'The buck stops here' - for egregious failures by the Secretariat of State such as the failure to do their duty to properly vet Mons. Wielgus in Poland before the Pope named him Archbishop of Warsaw, and failing to do due diligence on backgrounding Mons. Williamson for the Pope before the Vatican announced the recall of the FSSPX bishops' excommunication.
In both cases, I believe he did the Pope a great disservice, even without meaning to, by sheer negligence and taking things for granted. The Pope recently wrote him a very warm letter to confirm him as Secretary of State after he turned 75 - but that should be all the more reason for him to do all he can to avoid such dreadful embarrassments for the Pope as the Wielgus and Williamson affairs.
It is hard to attribute Magister's charges against Vian to a similar prejudice because until he blogged on the 'Diani Alfieri' article, Magister was a very enthusiastic supporter of Vian and how he has been doing his job at OR. Nor can anyone who follows Magister's reportage possibly think Magister is simply stirring up trouble by pointing out these apparent missteps by Vian.
At the very least, it is time for Vian to speak up, if only because the 'Diani Alfieri' article was truly scurrilous and calumniatory to Boffo, Avvenire and the leadership of the Italian bishops conference! I do wonder, too, why Magister could not have picked up the phone back in September to ask Vian directly about the 'Alfieri' article. Perhaps the fact that Vian did not rebut him was enough for him.
About Vian's editorial shortcomings and recurrent journalistic transgressions at OR, I could write a kilometric essay myself, with an abundance of objective examples to support my case. But being a sub-optimal editor is not as grievous as the sin of indulging in petty schemes that could reflect negatively on the Church. Vian owes the Pope - his employer, in effect - a public disclaimer, explanation or whatever of his seeming negative involvement in the Boffo case.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/02/2010 20:43]