Pope Francis on December 18, 2018, named Andrea Monda, 52, to be the new Director of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s Daily Newspaper.
«With Andrea Monda, L’Osservatore Romano will be able to continue initiating new projects in its centuries-old history,» said Dr. Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication. «The Holy See’s daily is one of the pillars of our communication, called to be increasingly involved in the process of integration of the Vatican informative system, as requested by the Holy Father in the Motu proprio that instituted the Dicastery for Communication.»
The Holy Father also appointed Italian Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli, 54, editorial director of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications.
«The choice of Andrea Monda as new Director is a challenge and a response to Pope Francis’ appeal to be “Church going forth,” to “start” new processes also in communication,» Dr. Ruffini said in a press release. «Professor Monda has been able to communicate the beauty of the Gospel and the richness of the Christian life in ambits and with different languages between them: from literature to essay writing, from music to television. As a docent of religion, Monda knows well the needs, the concern and the dreams of today’s young people. Experience of which the texts of the 2018 Via Crucis were woven entrusted by the Pope, in fact, to Monda and his students.»
Monda is a University Professor. He is married and father of one child. He has a degree in Law and another in Religious Studies. He has written for various publications, including Avvenire and La Civiltà Cattolica; he teaches religion and conducts seminars on Christianity and Literature at Pontifical Universities.
“I learned the news of my appointment with a mixed feeling of joy and fear, wonder and incredulity and, above all, of intense gratitude,» Monda said in a statement December 18. «I’ve been engaged in journalism for more than 30 years and I was always concerned with cultural, religious and theological topics, not disdaining that particular professional realm called ‘Vaticanism,’ but I certainly couldn’t imagine that I would be called to direct the Holy See’s daily, that ‘most singular’ newspaper as Saint Paul VI described it when presenting it (on the occasion of the centenary of 1961), as ‘a newspaper of ideas’ that ‘doesn’t intend to give news only but wishes to create thoughts.’
«And the first idea that comes to mind is that L’Osservatore Romano is the daily of the Church and the Church is first of all the People of God. Now, then, starting from this point, it’s about corresponding with the spirit of service to the great trust accorded to me by the Holy Father, on entrusting to me the task to contribute — through the guidance of L’Osservatore Romano — to the completion of the reform of the Holy See’s system of Communication entrusted to the Prefect, Paolo Ruffini.»
