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An image from L’Osservatore Romano's Dec. 2017 magazine. Note: Image has been pixelated. L’Osservatore Romano

VATICAN CITY, December 21, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The December issue of the Vatican’s monthly magazine is dedicated to “the symbolic power of women’s bodies” and contains images of women wearing nothing but what appears to be black bras and underpants. 

The “L’Osservatore Romano” magazine’s audience is largely celibate priests and religious. 

The edition is titled [Warning: Link to immodest material] “Donne Chiesa Mondo” (Women, Church, World). The introductory editorial, by  Lucetta Scaraffia, observes that every woman is a “potential mother” and therefore represents “the possibilities, the memory and the symbol” of the self-sacrificing love of a mother. 

For the most part, the magazine showcases world-famous photographs of fully clothed women quietly standing up to intimidating men. 

However, an essay titled “Corpi chi parlano” (“Bodies that speak”) is illustrated by black-and-white photographs of curvaceous women in black underwear. 

In the first photograph, a chubby woman with ironed-straight streaked hair plays peek-a-boo with a toddler, also in undergarments, who is sitting on her thighs. The young woman is wearing black underwear. Her protruding tummy bumps against the flat belly of the boy. There is tattooed writing on her left foot, and a large round tattoo above her ankle. She is sitting on the floor, with her legs outstretched. There is no background; they are in blackness. 

In the second photograph, five young women in black underwear tilt their heads to this side or that while smiling at the camera. They are all wearing revealing tops. The position of one of the women accentuates her breasts. Another woman has a massive tattoo. One of the women holds a half-naked child who looks down at a little girl. One woman has her hand cupped over her pregnant belly. 

The photos were apparently chosen to provide an intimate look into female fertility of all shapes and sizes. 

The authors who submitted articles to the magazine’s “Women, Church, World” issue are an interesting mix: five elderly women, three of whom are famous Italian feminists – Silvia Vegetti Finzi, a Freudian psychoanalyst; Luisa Muraro, a philosopher; and Lucia Annunziata, a leading journalist. 

The other writers are Catholic women religious Sister Catherine Aubin and Sister Carolyn Osiek, and an Italian poet named Elena Buia Rutt. At 46, Buia Rutt is the youngest of the bunch. The editor of the magazine, Lucetta Scaraffia, is 69.