The editor of a Catholic Church daily who criticised Silvio Berlusconi's private life quit Thursday after the Italian premier's family newspaper sought to expose him as a homosexual with a criminal record.Dino Boffo, 57, tendered his resignation in a letter to Msgr Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian bishops association which publishes the Avvenire daily, saying his family and professional life had been ''raped'' by a ''barbaric'' attack.
''I cannot accept a war of words continuing about me day after day, (a war) that is wrecking my family and leaving Italians more and more stunned,'' Boffo said in the letter. He claimed a ''shady anti-clerical power bloc'' was behind the campaign started by Il Giornale and taken up by other conservative dailies.
Bagnasco said he was accepting the resignation ''with regret'' and voiced ''unchanged regard'' for the former editor, whom he said had been the subject of ''an indescribable media attack''.
The guild of Catholic journalists voiced concern about freedom of speech, echoing the Italian journalists' guild which has organised a September 19 rally in defence of press freedom after Berlusconi sued left-leaning dailies La Repubblica and l'Unita'.
Bagnasco and Pope Benedict XVI had supported Boffo during a week-long campaign by Il Giornale, a daily owned by the brother of the conservative premier.
Il Giornale alleged a week ago that Boffo had been fined several years ago for harassing the wife of a man with whom he was in a relationship.
After the attack, from which Berlusconi distanced himself, the premier called off a trip to a forgiveness mass reportedly set up to mend fences with Catholics concerned about reports on the premier's alleged relationships with young women and a call girl who claimed she slept with him.
In an August 12 editorial in Avvenire, Boffo voiced ''malaise, mortification, and suffering'' about the premier's ''arrogant departure from a sober lifestyle''.
Last Friday Il Giornale's editor Vittorio Feltri accused Boffo of being a ''supermoralist'' who was not qualified to set himself up as a moral arbiter.
Feltri has refused to back down, claiming the facts of the case were clear and had not been denied. A court order on the fine Boffo paid has been released but judges have withheld details of the case, citing privacy.
The Italian press says it has tracked down the woman who reportedly sued Boffo in the Umbrian town of Terni but she has refused to answer questions.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to us or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that we agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
SIC: Ansa