| Honorific Prefix: | The Reverend Dr. |
| Antonio Spadaro | |
| Honorific Suffix: | SJ |
| Birth Date: | 6 July 1966 |
| Birth Place: | Messina, Sicily, Italy |
| Occupation: | Official of the Holy See and Vatican City State |
| Editor of La Civiltà Cattolica | |
| Term: | 1 October 2011 — present |
| Predecessor: | Gianpaolo Salvini |
| Successor: | incumbent |
| Organization: | Society of Jesus |
| Education: | University of Messina Pontifical Gregorian University |
| Nationality: | Italian |
Antonio Spadaro, SJ (born 6 July 1966) is an Italian Jesuit priest, journalist and writer.
Spadaro has been the editor in chief of the Jesuit-affiliated journal La Civiltà Cattolica since 2011. He is also a consultor to both the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Secretariat for Communications (previously known as the Pontifical Council for Social Communications).
He is described as being very close to Pope Francis, who is also a Jesuit.[1] [2] The pope named him as the incoming secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education in September 2023.
See main article: Holy See–United States relations and Catholic Church and politics in the United States. In July 2017, Spadaro co-wrote, an article entitled "Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism," in which he and Argentine Presbyterian Marcelo Figueroa made criticized the supporters of United States president Donald Trump. The article was approved by the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and published in the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica.[3] Sparado and Figueroa described American political life as Manichaean and said the Trump administration was responsible for promoting an "apocalyptic geopolitics", comparing American conservative Christians to ISIS.[4] [5] Spadaro also criticized American Catholics who supported the conservative movement and Trump in particular.
Spadaro later published an article in which he criticized Trump advisor Steve Bannon for his ideological ties to Calvinist theologian Rousas John Rushdoony. He also singled out Church Militant for "shocking rhetoric." Spadaro said that American Catholics and Protestants both promoted an "ecumenism of conflict" over abortion, same-sex marriage, and religious education in schools that also included a "xenophobic and Islamophobic vision", transforming it into an intolerant "ecumenism of hate."[6] The article also criticized conservatives for being uncritical of militarism, capitalism and the arms industry and for disregarding the environment.
While praised by publications such as the National Catholic Reporter[7] and Commonweal,[8] Spadaro was rebuffed by P.J. Smith in First Things: "Indeed, the liberal atomization that Spadaro and Figueroa want to exalt is one of the central problems with modernity that Francis dissects brilliantly in Laudato si'. Francis teaches us in that encyclical that 'it cannot be emphasized enough how everything is interconnected.'"[9] The Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput, described Spadaro's first article as "an exercise in dumbing down" and accused Spadaro and Figueroa of being "willfully ignorant" of the battle faced by American Catholics and Evangelical Protestants.[10] Chaput said, "It's an especially odd kind of surprise when believers are attacked by their co-religionists merely for fighting for what their Churches have always held to be true."[11] [12]