An attack on freedom

“A sickening and very grave fact”. That’s how the President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, described the attack launched against the editor of Italy’s daily of Catholic inspiration Avvenire, Dino Boffo, by Il Giornale, a daily whose proprietor is the brother of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and whose editor is Vittorio Feltri. Cardinal Bagnasco’s denunciation of the attack has met with wide support: many expressions of solidarity with and esteem for Dino Boffo have been published in recent days. During the summer months Boffo had published in his paper a series of critical comments on Premier Berlusconi’s record, ranging from the question of immigration to that of public morality. The attack of Il Giornale appeared on Friday 28 August with the publication of a document reporting a penal decree of the Court of Terni (2004) stating that Boffo, by paying a fine, had plea-bargained his way out of a charge of having committed an act of harassment against a woman. Alongside the document, Il Giornale also published an unsigned editorial commenting on the conduct of Dino Boffo, a copy of which which was sent to all the Italian bishops. An inquiry has now been opened on the origin and truthfulness of this editorial.The esteem of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. “I wish to re-affirm to Dr. Boffo – said the President of the CEI, Cardinal Bagnasco – all my esteem and my personal confidence and that of all the Italian bishops and Christian communities”. The reaction of the CEI’s Office for Social Communications to the attack was also immediate. It issued the following communiqué: “With regard to the accusations made today by a daily newspaper, we confirm our full confidence in Dino Boffo, editor of Avvenire, a paper he has directed with undoubted professional skill, even-handedness and prudence”.Trash. Monsignor Giuseppe Betori, Archbishop of Florence and General Secretary of the CEI until a few months ago, also intervened on the question: “My esteem for and confidence in Dr. Boffo – he declared – are testified by the close collaboration I established with him during the years of my service at the CEI. As for the anonymous sheets that have circulated in recent days, and that claim to be informative, I have always considered them – like any anonymous letter – fit only for the trashcan”. “Journalistic character assassination”. On 28 August, the day of Il Giornale ‘s attack, Dino Boffo himself replied with a press release: “The reading of the papers this morning held out a complete surprise for me” concerning “my personal life. Evidently Vittorio Feltri’s Il Giornale knows what I am ignorant of, and to corroborate it does not scruple to mount an implausible, captious and absurd case [against me]. Let’s not mince words: this is journalistic character assassination in its pure state, on which it is useless to waste words that have anything even remotely to do with professional ethics. We have sunk, it pains me to say so, to a state of barbarity”. “Let me be quite clear – continued Boffo – that I will not let myself be intimidated; my life and my work speak for themselves”. Writing in Avvenire on Sunday 30 August, Boffo points out that scrutinizing the document line for line, one can “rebut it, and especially show first its technical, and then perhaps its substantial, implausibility. We shall do so, if necessary”. So, in Boffo’s view, the document brandished by Il Giornale is a “worthless piece of trash that, with the minimum pretext, concocts a bizarre, fantastic and criminal situation”.Clear intimidation. The whole editorial staff of Avvenire also came to the immediate defence of its editor. “The gross and repugnant attack on Dino Boffo on the front page of today’s Il Giornale – says a press release – is a clear intimidation of the editor of Avvenire and of the paper’s whole editorial staff. Vittorio Feltri and his publisher cannot forgive its independence of judgement and its recall of Christian values as expressed by our paper in recent months. It’s not only a personal attack on the editor of Avvenire but also an attack on freedom of thought and the freedom of the press: expressing its full and affectionate solidarity with Dino Boffo, the whole editorial team pledges to continue as usual its own task of providing its readers with reliable information and exercise its right to criticize as well as to report”. The staff of the Catholic TV channel Sat2000, also directed by Boffo, has also expressed its support for him with equal determination.Full solidarity. Also on 28 August, the SIR press agency and the FISC (Italian Federation of Catholic Weeklies, representing over 190 diocesan weeklies) issued a communiqué expressing “full solidarity and unwavering confidence” in the editor of Avvenire. Franco Siddi, secretary of the Press Federation, also intervened on the case: “It is incredible that an attempt should be made in this way to muzzle and intimidate the newspaper of the bishops and their freedom to express their own views in testimony of their religious principles, or to prevent the editor and journalists of Avvenire from exercising their role of information and criticism without disguise”.