The prominent Jesuit Fr. Antonio Spadaro, known as “the Pope’s mouthpiece,” has resigned his long-standing position as editor of the regularly heterodox La Civilta Cattolica and been appointed to a position in the Roman curia.
Fr. Spadaro took to X (formerly known as Twitter) on September 14 to announce that his 12-year stint as editor of La Civilta Cattolica would come to an end at the close of the month.
In a letter marking his departure from the international Jesuit publication, Spadaro wrote:
Civiltà Cattolica has journeyed through this time as it always has: with fidelity to the Holy See, to the pope, and to today’s world in intense and significant times and situations. The Church? Today, she “needs to protest, call and cry out,” Francis said.
The journal has protested, called, cried out. It has done so diplomatically, but also with parrhesia. How it was possible to continue with both in mind is a mystery whose judges are our readers…It has fought against suffocating and petty-minded thought. It has not avoided taking a stand, especially when the risk was to be accused of hypocrisy or “fence-sitting.”
Spadaro highlighted his own close link with Pope Francis and the role that it had played in the expansion of the Jesuit journal, saying that La Civilta’s close relationship with the Pope “has also taken on new forms, for example, in the director’s [Spadaro’s] participation in the Holy Father’s apostolic travel as a member of the official delegation.”
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