Vatican City – On the very day of Pope Leo XIV’s election, a certain Sister Martha Zechmeister, a religious of the Congregation of the English Ladies and professor of systematic theology at the Central American University of El Salvador, penned a lengthy and cloying open letter to the new Pontiff. Published with great fanfare in issue 145 of Women Church World, the monthly supplement to L’Osservatore Romano, the letter is nothing more than an ideological manifesto disguised as an ecclesial appeal. It is not addressed solely to the Pope, but – as the author hastens to clarify – to the entire Church. A text claiming to be “evangelical” but in fact redolent of calculated, biased, and well-orchestrated pressure.
According to Sister Martha, the true schism within the Church does not come from those bishops attached to a millennia-old tradition (which she considers outdated), but from the “slow and unstoppable exodus” of women and men disillusioned by a Church still “symbolically and structurally male.” She claims to have no personal interest in accessing the priesthood, of course, but does not fail to reiterate – with ideological naivety – that she once believed, ingenuously, that after the Second Vatican Council a “complete fraternity” would soon be realised: in other words, a Church without gender distinctions. But “naïve trust” is no theological foundation – it is a declaration of vocational failure, not of ecclesial progress.
This letter – described by the author of the accompanying article as “courageous words” – is merely the latest instalment in a well-worn media strategy: to exploit official Vatican publications in order to exert pressure on the Pope and the People of God. The article is penned by Marinella Perroni, already well known for her pseudo-theological battles and her embeddedness in so-called “progressive” circles. A companion of the now-famous “howler of Camaldoli”, Andrea Grillo, Perroni has never stood out for intellectual rigour, but rather for her ability to ride every polemical and ideological wave to maintain her presence in editorial salons.
We already encountered Perroni during the dark days of the Enzo Bianchi affair: on that occasion, she produced a rambling letter in “support of the Bose nuns” – only the nuns, of course, since the monks were apparently unworthy of her selective solidarity. While Perroni was writing slogans for visibility and expressing solidarity where it was not needed, the documents spoke for themselves, published by those engaged in serious journalism. And today, once again, Perroni promotes – together with her ally Grillo – the obsession with female ordination, not out of love for the Church, but to secure herself a regular place in magazines and on conference panels.
It is scandalous that all this should be happening while these individuals are salaried by Vatican institutions (pontifical universities and dicasteries). Pseudo-theologians spreading heresies funded by the Holy See: this is the real scandal. A tragedy playing out even in the pages of Women Church World, whose link to L’Osservatore Romano represents a degeneration with no return. The daily newspaper of the Holy See has, for years now, been a pitiful puppet in the world of publishing – a refuge for ideologised voices utterly out of step with the Magisterium.
But the root of the problem goes far deeper than the current officials of the Dicastery for Communication (Monda, Ruffini, Tornielli). The original sin dates back to 2012, when Giovanni Maria Vian, among the worst editors in L’Osservatore Romano’s history, decided to found the feminist monthly. A man of astonishing ignorance and ideological leanings, Vian chose to appoint his friend Lucetta Scaraffia, now sadly notorious for her personal crusade against all things rational, as its editor. The two launched a project which – financed, of course, with Vatican funds – has consistently promoted feminist ideology disguised as ecclesial reflection.
This monthly – never read, always overprinted – has even dared to launch baseless campaigns, accusing priests in general terms of abusing nuns, going so far as to label as “abuse” the fact that religious sisters cook in convents or seminaries. Anything to reinterpret reality through the lens of a feminism that wishes to see women superior to men, ignoring the Gospel truth of reciprocal complementarity.
In 2019, deprived of her patron (Vian was finally removed in 2018 after having reduced the Pope’s newspaper to an embarrassing state), Scaraffia staged a performance that would have made even a decadent playwright blush: mass resignations by the all-female editorial team, vague accusations of being “silenced”, and complaints about an alleged lack of freedom. Can one really speak of an “autonomous and critical voice” when publishing articles against Church doctrine in a paper paid for by the faithful?
In truth, Scaraffia and her cohort simply wanted to continue writing whatever they pleased, without dialogue, without dissent, but with someone else footing the bill. They could have founded an independent journal, but it is far more convenient to do propaganda while seated in a Vatican-funded chair. Since then, Scaraffia has become a regular guest on anti-Catholic broadcasts, spitting venom even against the late Pope she once praised.
And today, nothing has changed. Women Church World continues to ignore cloistered nuns, consecrated women who serve Christ in silence and fidelity, the thousands of women who serve the community in obedience to the Church according to their vocation. They are never given a voice, because they do not shout, do not seek power, do not demand priesthood as if it were a throne from which to wield influence. Are they less women than the others?
No – the platform is given only to those who amplify the demands of those who see the ordained ministry as a place of power, not service. Yet there is no place in the Church – for men or women – for those who view the ordained ministry as a “summit to be reached” in order to “matter”.
“At the origin of her vocation was the trust that it would only be a matter of years before there would be a Church in which hierarchies based on gender would no longer exist,” writes Perroni. And here we find the very heart of the problem: a distorted and deeply fragile understanding of vocation itself. One cannot reduce God’s call to a sociological reaction, to an ideological illusion or, worse, to a desire for structural parity. This approach betrays not only a theological deficit, but a spiritual one – a lack of faith and authentic interiority.
Those who try to build their vocation on expectations of an anthropological reform of the Church, rather than on a response to the Lord’s personal call, clearly have never truly understood or lived the mystery of the Christian vocation. Here, more than a vocation, it seems there was a personal project seeking ecclesial validation. Inconsistent, immature motivations, far from the seriousness and spiritual depth every true calling requires. At the root of a vocation, there can be no claims to roles or ambitions for recognition, but only God, His will, and the free response to a love that calls one to serve, not to rule.
Those who write in the pages of that monthly do not represent women in the Church – take it from a religious sister. “Ideologies always kill,” Pope Francis warned. Those who write in Women Church World represent a thinly veiled ideology, a latent frustration, and a desire to subvert not in an evangelical way, but in a worldly one. It is time for the Church to confront this disgrace, to stop funding heresy disguised as debate, and to return to listening to those who serve in silence – not those who shout from media platforms.
Your Holiness, we ask You to dismiss Andrea Monda and the entire disastrous communications team. As soon as possible, for the damage is plain to see.
s.E.A.
Silere non possum