L'Osservatore Romano

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L'Osservatore Romano

19 August 2015 Italian-language front page of L'Osservatore Romano

Type Daily in Italian

Weekly in other languages

Format Broadsheet

Owner(s) The Holy See

Editor Andrea Monda

Founded 1 July 1861 (159 years old)

Political alignment Roman Catholic Church

 Headquarters Via del Pellegrino - 00120

Vatican City

ISSN 0391-688X

Website www.osservatoreromano.va

L'Osservatore Romano (Italian: [losservaˈtoːre roˈmaːno], 'The Roman Observer') is

the daily newspaper of Vatican City State which reports on the activities of the Holy
See and events taking place in the Church and the world. [1][2] It is owned by the Holy
See but is not an official publication, a role reserved for the Acta Apostolicae Sedis,
which acts as a government gazette.[3][4][2] The views expressed in the Osservatore are
those of individual authors unless they appear under the specific titles "Nostre
Informazioni" or "Santa Sede".[5][6]
Available in nine languages, the paper prints two Latin mottos under the masthead of
each edition: Unicuique suum ("To each his own") and Non praevalebunt ("[The
gates of Hell] shall not prevail").[7] The current editor-in-chief is Andrea Monda.
On 27 June 2015, Pope Francis, in an apostolic letter, established the Secretariat for
Communications, a new part of the Roman Curia, and included L'Osservatore
Romano under its management.[8][9]

Contents

 1Editions
 2History
o 2.119th century
o 2.220th century
o 2.321st century
 3Official views of the Magisterium
 4Leadership
 5See also
 6References
 7Further reading
 8External links

Editions[edit]
L'Osservatore Romano is published in nine different languages (listed by date of first
publication):[10]

 Daily and weekly in Italian (1861/1950)

 Weekly in French (1949)
 Weekly in English (1968)
 Weekly in Spanish (1969)
 Weekly in Portuguese (1970)
 Weekly in German (1971)
 Monthly in Polish (1980)
 Weekly in Malayalam (2007)[11]
The daily Italian edition of L'Osservatore Romano is published in the afternoon, but
with a cover date of the following day, a convention that sometimes results in
confusion.[3] The weekly English edition is distributed in more than 129 countries,
including both English-speaking countries and locales where English is used as the
general means of communication.[10]

History[edit]

Under Pope Leo XIII, the Holy See acquired ownership of L'Osservatore in 1885.

19th century[edit]
Giornale di Roma (27 November 1852)

L'Osservatore Romano: front page of 15 May 1891, publishing the encyclical Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo
XIII.

Giornale di Roma was the newspaper of the Papal States, with first issue published
in Rome on 6 July 1849. It continued until 19 September 1870 and is considered the
predecessor of L'Osservatore Romano.
The first issue of L'Osservatore Romano was published in Rome on 1 July 1861, a
few months after the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed on 17 March 1861.[10] The
original intent of the newspaper was unabashedly polemical and propagandistic in
defence of the Papal States, adopting the name of a private pamphlet financed by
a French Catholic legitimist group.[10] 18 September 1860 defeat of papal troops
at Castelfidardo substantially reduced the temporal power of the Pope, prompting
Catholic intellectuals to present themselves in Rome for the service of Pope Pius IX.
[10]
 This agenda supported the notion of a daily publication to champion the opinions
of the Holy See.[10]
By July 1860, the deputy Minister of the Interior, Marcantonio Pacelli (grandfather of
the future Pope Pius XII), had plans to supplement the official bulletin of the Catholic
Church Giornale di Roma with a semi-official "rhetorical" publication. In early 1861,
controversialist Nicola Zanchini and journalist Giuseppe Bastia were granted editorial
direction of Pacelli's newspaper. Official permission to publish was sought on 22
June 1861, and four days later, on 26 June, Pius IX gave his approval for the
regulation of L'Osservatore.[10]
The first edition was entitled "L'Osservatore Romano – a political and moral paper"
and cost five baiocchi. The "political and moral paper" epithet was dropped before
1862, adding instead the two Latin mottoes that still appear under the masthead
today.[10] The editors of the paper initially met in the Salviucci Press on the Piazza
de' Santi Apostoli, where the paper was printed. Only when the editorial staff was
established on the Palazzo Petri in Piazza dei Crociferi and the first issue printed
there on 31 March, was the wording "daily newspaper" added to the masthead.
After the breach of Porta Pia by Italian troops in September 1870, L'Osservatore
Romano solidified its opposition to the Kingdom of Italy, affirming obedience to the
Pope and adherence to his directives, stating it would remain faithful "to that
unchangeable principle of religion and morals which recognises as its sole
depository and claimant the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth".[10] Soon
after, L'Osservatore began to replace the Giornale di Roma as the news organ of the
Pontifical State. Giornale di Roma stopped publication on 19 September 1870 almost
a decade after launch of L'Osservatore Romano. During the pontificate of Pope
Leo XIII, The Vatican acquired the paper's ownership in 1885.
20th century[edit]
The Osservatore continued to be published as a newspaper in Vatican City, but in
1904 Acta Sanctae Sedis which had existed since 1865, was declared the formal
organ of the Holy See in that all documents printed in it were considered "authentic
and official".[12] Acta Sanctae Sedis ceased publication four years later and on 29
September 1908 Acta Apostolicae Sedis became the official publication of the Holy
See. [13]
The English weekly edition was first published on 4 April 1968. [10] On 7 January 1998,
that edition became the first to be printed outside of Rome, when for North American
subscribers, it began to be printed in Baltimore.[14] The edition was printed by the
Cathedral Foundation, publishers of The Catholic Review.[14]
21st century[edit]
As of 1 July 2011, the English language edition of the L'Osservatore Romano for
North American subscribers is once again published in Rome; [15] it had been
published by the Cathedral Foundation of Baltimore since 1998. [14]
In the 21st century, the paper has taken a more objective and subdued stance than
at the time of its foundation, priding itself in "presenting the genuine face of the
church and the ideals of freedom", following the statement by Cardinal Tarcisio
Bertone in an October 2006 speech inaugurating a new exhibit dedicated to the
founding and history of the newspaper. [16] He further described the publication as "an
instrument for spreading the teachings of the successor of Peter and for information
about church events".[16]