Sister Fernanda Di Monte: a vocation for communication
From Palermo, a religious of the Daughters of St. Paul, a journalist and communications expert committed to the field of education
(by Sister Fernanda Di Monte)
Telling about oneself is more difficult than writing about others. One feels a sense of modesty, of confidentiality.
But in my case, it is about witnessing a story, a choice made 57 years ago.
It was 1968, I was attending scientific high school and I happened to be in front of the Pauline Bookstore in Cagliari: looking at the various books on display, I was attracted in particular by one, entitled, “If I became a nun?”
It was April and in September of that year I entered the Community of the Daughters of St. Paul, in Alba, Motherhouse, both founded by Blessed Fr. James Alberione and Sr. Thecla Merlo in 1915.
It was a surprise not only for my family but strongly engaging for me. I was a lively girl, involved in Catholic Action, always ready to lend a hand, but I was certainly not thinking about “becoming a nun.”
In 2024 I celebrated my 50th religious profession, together with my novitiate companions.
The Congregation gave us the gift of going to Malta, for spiritual exercises on pilgrimage to the places of St. Paul. It was truly an immersion in the story of the Apostle and Pauline spirituality. So much emotion, so much gratitude.
Thinking back to the many years I lived in Italy, to the possibility of becoming a professional journalist at St. Paul’s Periodicals, particularly at the magazine “Jesus,” a world opened up in which my vocation was finding deeper and deeper meaning. To talk about God, to get to know people, their stories, to tell lives, to delve into issues, to become passionate about the reality of Women in society, in the Church.
To judge the current situation of women in the Church without going to the origins is a disservice to the truth.
Jesus broke the patterns of his time, in which woman was not considered. The message of the Gospel is clear, recognizing a role for women in Christian communities that society instead denied. The early church was made up of domestic, family churches in which the role of women was fundamental.
Theme, this one of women, which I am still engaged in today, not to “claim,” but to urge a return to the Gospel, to Jesus, who always
had respect, acceptance, esteem for the female reality.
While working in the editorial staff of “Jesus,” after a conference at the Pro Civitate in Assisi on the theme “male and female God created them,” I met several Italian women theologians: Cettina Militello, Adriana Valerio, Maria Cristina Bartolomei and others. I proposed to the then Director to dedicate a space to women.
The “Al Femminile” column was born (forty years ago this was not a popular term). I interviewed 48 women from all professions. It was an experience I carry in my heart.
I arrived in Palermo in 2001, returning from several years living in Brazil.
It was not painless to leave active journalism and stay in the bookstore … I carried and carry along with the badge of the Daughters of St. Paul, a pen … that helped me to ease the labors … of a reality that is always within me.
And then a new space was made: in schools, with young people about the world of education through the various media of communication. The meeting with authors/authors for book presentations, in the Pauline Bookstore in Corso Vittorio Emanuele, in front of the Cathedral and in Via Notarbartolo, next to the Falcone Tree. The strong experience in juvenile prisons in Caltanisetta and in the women’s section of Pagliarelli, in the Sicilian capital.
I am a nun, I am happy (a word I felt flowing from my heart for the gift of 50 years of consecration)
and I continue my journey with gratitude toward the Trinity, in the company of the people I meet.
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- Grazia Bonanno