MILAN, Italy — Leading Catholic publication Famiglia Cristiana has stirred up a media storm in Italy with its first ever photograph of a naked woman, part of an advertisement for a bathroom ventilation system.

The photograph — chaste by the standards of Italy’s bawdy television shows and risque news magazines covers — shows only a female bottom shot through a misty shower door.

But it has been enough to put Famiglia Cristiana, traditionally the most popular publication with Italian families, back in the headlines.

“There is no change of position, or of our line. It is just a female outline behind a misty and dirty window,” director Don Antonio Sciortino told Corriere della Sera on Thursday.

“We saw the advert and approved it. It seemed a little bit on the limit, but not enough to cause strong consternation. We count on our readers’ maturity.”

Famiglia Cristiana has in the past faced outraged readers over its first underwear advertisement and later over a mineral water commercial which included a naked child.

In 1996, readers of the magazine — which usually includes current affairs features as well as cookery, travel and religious advice — protested after it published photographs of low-cut swimsuits.

It has also come under fire from the Vatican for publishing letters on sexual morality.