On Friday April 5th, an all ‘new look’ edition of the
prestigious Italian Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica was
presented at the Vatican Press Office, alongside the first digital
version available for download by subscribers.
Founded back in 1850
by a group of Jesuits in Naples, it’s Italy’s longest running magazine,
dealing not just with the life of the Church, but also with cutting edge
political, economic, cultural, scientific and social issues from a
broadly Christian perspective.
The new edition of the magazine is also
aiming to reach a younger and more international audience.
"Founded
in 1850, it is Italy’s oldest journal…it was founded by a group of
Jesuits in Naples. At that time, Italy was a group of different nations
but the review was spread out across Italy so it was an international
publication, and it helped Italy to grow up as a nation because they
used Italian as a language and not Latin like the other ecclesiastical
reviews of the time…
Of course La Civiltà Cattolica was born against
the unity of Italy, in defence of the Pope, and we are still in defence
of the Pope, but we have completely changed our way of thinking – we
support the unity of Italy and now, especially after the Second Vatican
Council we try to follow the innovations of the Church, trying to go
with the Church where Vatican II tried to lead…
The magazine was
born from the idea of defending “Catholic civilisation” against the
threats of modern, liberalising trends – are you still doing that?
In
a sense there is a style which is very militant… we like to talk about
interesting topics, but we try to build bridges between the Church and
the world. As Jesuits we are called by the popes to be where the
trenches and boundaries are, these are the favourite places of the
Jesuits.
How will the election of the first ever Jesuit Pope affect your work?
It
was completely unexpected, when I heard the name Georgium Marium… I had
a stroke! I was in St Peters Square and so I asked myself what it means
– yes, we are proud to have a Jesuit pope but our relationship with the
pope and the Church will be the same. But of course his formation was
shaped by the Jesuit spirituality, so we’re going to be more attentive,
more Jesuit in a sense.
The Vatican Secretary of State still revises, some would say censors, your publication though?
We
are in tune with the Secretary of State, which means that what we write
is certified, so not official at all, but authoritative….
But you must have differences of opinion sometimes?
At
first I have to say that each person here in the house has a different
opinion from the other, so we as Jesuits don’t have one vision, but we
try to talk together to shape a way of thinking, but we have different
visions. So this unity comes at first from inside and is the hardest
step of our work, but very exciting also. I never had problems with the
Secretary of State, we talk and that’s great….
And maybe you influence the thinking of others in the Vatican?
We
try to help them, to be at the service of the Church, I hope we can
help in a simple modest way to think about emerging questions…..We are
seven in the collegio degli scrittori, the board of writers. Then there
are other Jesuits who are over 75 who work for us too – one is 92, he
writes so simply but so profoundly. Also we try to ask other Jesuits
from all over the world to write for us, so in a sense our board of
writers is the entire Society of Jesus. Our vision can’t be just Italian
or European so we are building bridges with other countries, other
reviews and especially Jesuits who work in universities around the
world.
Now you are launching this ‘new look’ edition, as well as an online version….
We
are trying not to chose just one platform, we want to keep going, to
publish the printed review but at the same time we want to reach other
people, so we decided to go online, on ipad, iphone, android, windows 8,
kindle fire, so every platform, every tablet can have an application to
download our contents…. And for us it’s also important to be on
Facebook and Twitter, because communication is changing: if before it
was just broadcasting, now it’s about sharing- you know things if you
share things with others.We like to reach a younger audience and not
just Catholic audiences but a broader audience. Our language is very
simple, but at the same time the writers are specialists in their many
fields so one of our main goals, yes is to broaden our readership.
We
try not to talk just about theology or the life of the Church, there is a
specific place in the review for that, but we usually talk about
politics, economics, art, literature, music, science, even sports
sometimes. We’re trying to understand the contemporary world enlightened
by the light of faith, so in a sense our mission is to read the world
from a Christian point of view"