LA POLITICA ITALIANA and ZENIT(Italy)

ROME –For the first time in its over 150-year history, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official daily newspaper, is publishing a supplement specifically for women. The four-page insert is called "Women, Church, World" and is written "by and for" Catholic women, La Politica Italiana reports.

In an interview with non-profit news agency Zenit, Lucetta Scaraffia, the editor of the supplement and a history professor at La Sapienza University in Rome, explained that women hold an important role in the daily life of the Catholic Church, whether they are nuns or laywomen. The supplement, she explained, is a necessary way to acknowledge that.

The supplement wants to open its pages to contributors from all over the world to reflect the global presence of the Catholic Church, Scaraffia says. She says women have been "deceived" by a certain type of feminism. "A majority of women," says Scaraffia, "believed those who promised happiness and freedom through sexual freedom, contraception and abortion. As if happiness, for women, was to behave like men."

The editor considers herself a feminist. She also criticizes the clergy, which she deems "traditionally misogynistic." The first female journalist of L'Osservatore Romano joined the editorial staff in 2008.