Vatican City - The appointment of María Montserrat Alvarado as head of the Dicastery for Communication is not simply a reshuffle, nor is it the result of routine retirements. It is a sign that, inside Palazzo Pio, something has finally shifted. Leo XIV has decided to intervene in a Dicastery he had been reflecting on for some time, bringing to a close - at least that is his intention - a season marked by opacity, personal networks and a system of power which Silere non possum has not merely suspected: it has documented it, with papers, audio and video material, internal sources and precise investigations.
Yet just as this new phase begins, Silere non possum is forced publicly to denounce an episode of unprecedented gravity, already brought to the attention of the competent authorities: an incident which, in its methods, context and purpose, amounts to an intimidation ambush carried out in a mafia-style manner against the director of this newspaper, Marco Felipe Perfetti. The Editorial Director of Vatican Media, Andrea Tornielli, is in fact acting in concert with a clique which Silere non possum has already described as criminal, with the aim of harassing, striking and silencing this daily newspaper.
The ambush at the Rimini Meeting
Let us turn to the facts. Last summer Silere non possum was among the newspapers accredited to the Rimini Meeting. Andrea Tornielli arrived in Rimini and spent the days waiting for Marco Felipe Perfetti, the director of this online newspaper. While the other collaborators had been present from the first day, the director arrived only towards the end of the event. Sources inside Communion and Liberation report that Tornielli was agitated because “he was waiting for Marco Felipe Perfetti. He kept pacing back and forth, up and down from the Press Room, returning to the Vatican News booth with his mobile phone in his hand, huffing and puffing. He was waiting and kept asking insistently: ‘When is he arriving?’”
Those were the heated months in which Silere non possum had denounced the entire scandalous handling of the Conclave, and Tornielli was still furious also because of the articles published during the previous year’s Meeting.
“On the day I arrived,” the director recounts, “I went to the press room to collect my accreditation. I spoke to a few people and the lady who handed me the badge already had the accreditation printed and ready among those of the people who were ‘expected’, let us put it that way. Considering that I do not regard myself as a VIP, and considering that in previous years the badge was printed on the spot, this struck me as curious. Meanwhile the lady said: ‘Tell **** that the director of Silere non possum has arrived.’”
The director therefore asked: “Who has to be informed?” The reply was: “No, nothing, don’t worry.” Shortly afterwards, a long-standing friend belonging to the Fraternity approached him before he had even gone down the stairs and warned him: “Look, Tornielli has asked to be notified when you arrive. I don’t know what he has in mind.” At that point the director took all due precautions and went down the stairs.
As soon as he reached the lower floor, the director found himself facing Andrea Tornielli and a priest friend of his, not better identified, who was backing him up and acting as his enforcer. They approached him in an intimidating manner. Several collaborators of Silere non possum witnessed the scene, as did some readers, and detailed evidence exists of what happened. Tornielli acted with the approval of his collaborators and in the presence of this priest, who appeared from who knows where, and over whom it is better to draw a veil.
The encounter was an uninterrupted attack in which Tornielli, visibly furious, complained about what had appeared in the articles without, however, offering any contrary evidence. When the director asked why Tornielli does not cite Silere non possum in stories that are exclusives of this newspaper - as in the Rupnik case - the answer was that he cites whomever he likes and speaks about whatever he likes. Except, however, when it comes to claiming rights over the Dicastery’s images. Professional ethics applied only when convenient, in short. Tornielli even went so far as to ask the director why he did not respond to the homophobic insults, gravely damaging to the dignity of persons, which had for some time been directed at him by a “great friend” of his - who, moreover, has a criminal record - or rather by the person acting on his behalf. That question had a precise meaning: why do you not give in to the provocation? A man in his sixties behaving like a fifteen-year-old.
Moreover, Tornielli was unable to justify why he, Salvatore Cernuzio and other followers of his were following and liking - all documented - defamatory posts against Silere non possum coming from an account created specifically to attack this newspaper. Neither he nor the individual he had brought with him - a sort of bodyguard, as though he were incapable of moving around by himself, there with the clear aim of intimidating Silere non possum - could justify why they followed and liked that homophobic and derisive page.
For more than an hour Tornielli shouted in front of anyone who passed by and turned to look at him, red in the face, pointing his finger and - it must be said - even laying his hands on the director of Silere non possum. “Yes, he kept touching my arm, not that he beat me up… but I simply told him not to touch me. I do not like people putting their hands on me,” the director Marco Felipe Perfetti explains. During that hour Tornielli even mistreated some girls who were selling tickets for the Meeting lottery, telling them that “it was not the time and that they should get out of the way”. Those who witnessed the scene said they were embarrassed.
In the end the director of Silere non possum greeted him calmly, reminding him that, should he have evidence capable of disproving what this newspaper writes and documents, he may always send it to the editorial office: the right of reply is guaranteed by us to everyone. Until that evidence arrives, Silere non possum will not change a single line to please Andrea Tornielli or to conform to his wishes.
It was a genuine mafia-style ambush, constructed to intimidate the director of Silere non possum. That conversation, of which - we repeat - there are several sources and perspectives of proof, confirmed what had long been reported inside Palazzo Pio: Tornielli indulges and incites the serial defamer with a criminal record who published homophobic insults and who was expelled from his diocese of origin because of the many problems he had created. The amusing thing is that Tornielli described him as: “A troubled person who attacks the Pope, who attacks everyone”, as if seeking to distance himself from him. But we shall speak about this later.
Tornielli’s childish methods: the conduct of a violent little boomer
Andrea Tornielli’s method is that of a pompous and resentful child. A cardinal of Holy Roman Church, an archbishop or even just a priest in the same position would never have done what Tornielli does and has done, if only because they would be aware of the role they occupy. So much so that in recent years several cardinals and bishops have exerted pressure to prevent everything concerning him from being published: “Leave him alone, poor man. Can’t you see he has problems…”
And certainly, if Andrea Tornielli limited himself to acting merely as Andrea Tornielli, we would even have left him alone; but since he continues to behave as though Vatican News were his blog and the Dicastery for Communication his personal property, letting it pass has become impossible: the image of Leo XIV is gravely damaged by it and risks being dragged into a scandal of colossal proportions.
During the intimidation ambush Tornielli even claimed that he had followed and liked the defamatory account by mistake. An embarrassing version not only because Tornielli followed and liked several posts, but also because Silere non possum has proof that on the papal flight several journalists, including him, were exchanging the link to that homophobic and insulting Twitter account. And we also have proof that inside the Dicastery that account was discussed while mocking Silere non possum every time a post was published. We also possess proof of what Salvatore Cernuzio and Andrea Tornielli say within the walls of Palazzo Pio, only then to whimper when they are mocked by Silere non possum for their poor - or non-existent - professionalism and competence.
When Tornielli claimed he had made a mistake in liking the posts, the director pointed out a simple fact to him: “Strange that by mistake you have never followed Silere non possum, which you nevertheless visit every day and which is your obsession.” Indeed, Tornielli begins monitoring Silere non possum from four in the morning, the hour at which he starts combing through newspapers and websites to learn “all the news of the moment” and then “plague his employees in the Dicastery too”.
Internal sources in the Dicastery then describe a real fetish developed by Andrea Tornielli towards Silere non possum over these years. “There are several sites, even blogs, that write disgusting and nauseating things about the Pope, both this one and the previous one, but he does not concern himself with them. Besides the fact that this is not his job, he is not paid for it. Silere non possum, however, is an obsession of his,” one employee confides.
The editorial office has been given evidence of remarks made by Tornielli, always accompanied by insulting comments, about this newspaper and its director. “He is obsessed. He constantly reports your posts; even now, while he is in Madrid instead of working, he is reporting your posts,” says a person present on the flight. Another adds: “During the Conclave he was going mad because you were bringing all his gaffes to light. Even during editorial meetings, when he is under pressure as he has been in recent months, he threatens to take away remote working. He looks for ways to silence you, when in reality everything you are saying is true and Ruffini’s removal clearly proves it, whatever they say about retirement.”
These sources say they are “terrified” even at the thought of “uttering a word”, because another of Tornielli’s fixations is precisely the sources of Silere non possum, whom he again branded at Rimini as “cowards and vile”. He forgets one detail, however: if those sources entrust themselves to Silere non possum it is because they know they can count on total protection, guaranteed by the professionalism and structure of this newspaper, and because unfortunately they have no other way of denouncing what is happening, given the reprisals that are regularly put in place by him and his “accomplices”. The difference between us and Tornielli is only one: we give voice to those who are harassed and unjustly exiled; he has always been the trumpet of the powerful who needed to get rid of someone. And his writings demonstrate this amply, with all his “scoops” - or alleged scoops - in which over the years he has spoken about sex, seminarians, gay people, has tried to lecture priests morally, and has served the powerful and cliques such as Bergoglio’s in order to obtain positions that bring him four-figure salaries. Tornielli then complained because, for a certain period, Silere non possum had blocked him. That block had come for a precise reason: Tornielli was reporting our posts in an attempt to have them removed from the X and Meta platforms, actions which gravely undermine freedom of the press and aim to strike a free daily newspaper.
The subsequent reaction was, to say the least, childish. Once the discussion was over, he returned to the Vatican News booth and began following the Silere non possum account and that of the director. The gesture, however, did not erase the hatred, the reports and the attempts at silencing: Tornielli continued to report, as his collaborators also confirm on the papal flight, the posts of Silere non possum that bring to light his actions inside the Dicastery.
Because we are speaking of clumsy and embarrassing figures who do not grasp an elementary difference. One thing is to write that they make spelling and syntax mistakes, that they publish things that are untrue, that they publish posts packed with inaccuracies, that they act with methods far from praiseworthy inside the Dicastery, and so on. Quite another is to attack a person personally, spread false rumours and forge alliances with criminal cliques for the sole purpose of striking those who bring their intrigues to light. But we saw, in the Sloane Avenue Trial, what Andrea Tornielli is capable of.
Andrea Tornielli thought he could intimidate the director of Silere non possum. He picked the wrong person and the wrong newspaper. Those who act transparently, calmly and without debts to repay do not fear ambushes. Tornielli, instead, should explain how he got where he is, what relationships he built and what protections enabled him to occupy a position he now fears losing.
A Dicastery run as private property
To understand how things could reach this point, one must look at how the Dicastery has been run in recent years. We have given voice to those who, in those offices, had academic qualifications, skills and experience, and precisely for this reason were marginalised, dismissed and subjected to workplace harassment. Serious professionals were sidelined and humiliated to make room for the friends and associates of Andrea Tornielli, Paolo Ruffini, Andrea Monda and Matteo Bruni. We have repeatedly reported the intrigues that run through those offices: not corridor gossip, but a method of governance.
The hiring logic also remains light years away from the transparency Pope Francis called for in his writings. People were hired through friendship and personal liking, with merit left in the background. When the direct route proved impracticable, a familiar manoeuvre was used: entry into any role whatsoever and, in due course, a move into the desired position.
These intrigues have always caused enormous damage to the Holy See. This ranges from grammatically poor and error-filled Press Office bulletins to general audiences published hours and hours after the event had ended. And then the slips that went around the world: “Pius XIV has been elected”, the tweet announcing white smoke when the smoke was not white, “Leo XVI”, and one could go on. Called to answer for this, Andrea Tornielli dismissed the matter with a shrug: over many years, mistakes happen. “There will have been a hundred mistakes since I arrived in 2018,” he said verbatim. A defence that turns back on itself: Tornielli puts together a hundred mistakes in just a few days.
Yet reality tells a different story. When the errors are recorded by Silere non possum and, with it, by thousands of clerics and lay people, the hypothesis of an isolated oversight collapses by itself, and a problem remains. And that problem has its roots precisely in hiring practices. Take the handling of an extremely delicate event such as the Conclave, entrusted to a woman who wants to appear and show herself off, willing to do anything to be noticed: the error inevitably comes, because she ends up seeing even what is not there. And besides, how can one put in charge of social media someone who comes from Vatican Radio and whose only hobby is jazz music?
This is why in recent years we have reported the actions of Andrea Tornielli and Paolo Ruffini, and with them those of Andrea Monda and Matteo Bruni: Vatican communication cannot be treated as private property, nor bent to the interests of a network of power that claims to establish what must be said, how it must be said and through whose mouth. What has happened in recent days confirms the picture we have long denounced. More than one journalist has told Silere non possum that Matteo Bruni and the machinery of the Dicastery for Communication did everything possible to have already published articles modified, attempting to persuade some editorial offices to change the wording in the passages that referred to the removal of Paolo Ruffini.
At Palazzo Pio the method is well tested. When the narrative does not coincide with the desired one, the phone is picked up, pressure is placed on accredited newspapers, the network of relationships built over the years is brought to bear and one demands that reality be corrected. Under this management Vatican communication has developed a worrying reflex: to manipulate perception, protect its own men, strike those who document critical issues. It is a system that operates in the shadows and which, when newspapers do not allow themselves to be influenced, moves on to other methods.
Silere non possum is publishing only part of the embarrassing ambush, reserving the right to publish the rest in the coming days
An attack on freedom of the press
Having failed in the attempt at intimidation, and seeing that in recent weeks his position has begun to look increasingly unstable, in these hours the Editorial Director of Vatican Media - and with him, inevitably, the very face of the Pope is involved - is carrying out actions that are as useless as they are annoying, with the sole purpose of silencing Silere non possum and limiting freedom of the press. Actions which, of course, have already been brought to the attention of press freedom bodies. They have been informed that the Holy See, and with it the people who work for the Pope, is attempting to gag an online newspaper which has long been bringing to light intrigues and misdeeds carried out to the detriment of the Church and of the Pope himself.
This is an episode of extreme gravity, involving both certain members of the Rimini Meeting and some of Tornielli’s collaborators. That one of the men responsible for the Pope’s communication should have chosen to set an intimidation ambush with that typically Italian mafia-style method is a very grave matter, casting a sinister light not only on the Holy See, but on the Pope himself.
The director of Vatican Media organised an intimidating and mafia-style ambush against Silere non possum, even going so far as to ask members of Communion and Liberation to become accomplices by informing him of the director’s arrival. And still today he continues to harass a free daily newspaper which does not bend to his whims and intimidations, which protects its sources and brings his actions to light, and which in Tornielli’s eyes has only one fault: that of reporting what happens inside his offices.
The question that remains
The Holy See cannot pretend not to see. The Pope cannot ignore what is happening inside the Dicastery for Communication. If all this does not come to an end, it will be inevitable to hold the Holy See politically and institutionally responsible for a system that seeks to gag Silere non possum, as well as all those who want the truth to emerge.
The appointment of María Montserrat Alvarado opens a new phase. And if this phase is truly to be new, it will have to begin with a simple question: can those who have used Vatican communication as an instrument of pressure, intimidation and personal revenge remain in their posts?
Silere non possum will continue to do its work. It will continue to publish documents, audio, video, evidence and testimonies. And the more Tornielli continues, the more we shall go on. More material will be published very soon. And those who have built a system of power, pressure and defamation in the shadows should know one thing: a gag will not stop the truth.
P.L. e fr.F.V.
Silere non possum