The President of the Pontifical Academy for Life: "Personally I would not practice assisted suicide, but..."

It is pretty safe to say that, since its "reform" in late 2016, the Pontifical Academy for Life has become a withered husk of its former self, embroiled in controversy after controversy under its current president, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia - from damaging statements on abortion, to suggestions that the Church's teaching on contraception in Humanae vitae is "reformable", to some of its members (even the 'Catholic' ones!) being openly against Church teaching on life issues. 

Perhaps, then, it should not come as too much of a surprise that the Academy's president is in favour of the liberalisation of euthanasia laws. Archbishop Paglia, in a speech to the International Festival of Journalism in Perugia, Italy, said on April 19 that: 

[I]t cannot be excluded that in our society a legal mediation is feasible which allows assisted suicide in the conditions specified by the [Italian] Constitutional Court's Judgment 242/2019... The bill approved by the Chamber of Deputies (but not by the Senate) basically followed this line. Personally I would not practice assisted suicide, but I understand that legal mediation can constitute the greatest common good concretely possible in the conditions in which we find ourselves. (Italian text; video)

Francis names pro-abortion atheist as member of Pontifical Academy for Life

 A nightmare that has no end: that is the sick pontificate through which we are suffering. 

The Pontifical Academy for Life was one of the very few positive post-conciliar creations. Unsurprisingly, it was born of the mind of Dr. Jerôme Lejeune, one of the greatest pro-life heroes, who suggested it to John Paul II and was named its first president.

Since the advent of Francis, the new Pontifical Academy for Life has become a hotbed of dissent from Catholic moral teaching: from contraception to homosexuality to abortion, and other doctrinal issues, there is no matter on which it has not caused scandal under the leadership of Abp. Vincenzo Paglia.

Its newest members were named by Francis yesterday, among them a radical leftist economist, an Italian living in the U.S. named Mariana Mazzucato. Mazzucato is an avowed atheist:

On Abp. Paglia's Statement on the Italian Abortion Law (by John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family)

 [For Paglia's statement, see previous post on Rorate.]

Last Friday 26 August, Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV), was a guest on the RAI 3 programme Agorà – Summer. At one point (1) , the presenter Giorgia Rombolà asked Msgr. Paglia for an opinion on law 194/1978, which legalised procured abortion in Italy. Msgr. Paglia replied: “I think that law 194 is now a pillar of our social life”. It should be made clear immediately that the President of the PAV, in expressing himself in this way, did not intend to merely report a judgement present in the community on the 194 law, a judgement that he did not share – as Dr Fabrizio Mastrofini, Monsignor Paglia’s spokesman, attempted to claim a few days later in an official note – but rather was it not that he wanted to express his own personal judgement, a judgement of appreciation?

Pontifical Family Council President Paglia: "World Family Meeting in Philadelphia open to homosexual couples."

“Everyone is welcome, nobody is excluded”. With these words Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, replied to the questions from journalists at a press conference for the presentation of the eighth World Meeting of Families, planned for the 22nd to the 27th of September in Philadelphia. Asked about the presence or non-presence of homosexual couples in Philadelphia, Monsignor responded: “We are following Instrumentum Laboris on the Synod to the letter. Everyone can come, nobody is excluded. And if anyone feels excluded, I’ll leave the 99 little sheep and go and get him”, he added with a quip.

“The intimate connection” between the meeting in the USA and the Synod, specified Monsignor Paglia, “is evidently not only temporal. The hope is that the meeting in Philadelphia and the Synod in October may truly build an ecclesial and social season, characterized by a renewed focus on the family. We want to work towards this. We want the Gospel of mercy proclaimed in the great cities of the world, most of all in the poorest and most marginalized quarters.” (SIR).

(Source: La Fede Quotidiana, translation by Contributor Francesca Romana)

Explaining what Paglia really said First effect of the Paglia declarations in favor of homosexual civil unions: Italian prime minister defends their introduction

Patrimonium: the various derivations of this word in the Continental languages indicate much more than mere relations of inheritance, but all assets of a person, a corporation, or, for instance, a married couple.

For some reason, some have tried to minimize the extremely grave declarations of the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Abp. Vincenzo Paglia, in favor of the "diritti patrimoniali" of individual members of a same-sex "couple" to matters of inheritance. Even the president of Human Life International Fr. Shehan Boquet, has tried to downplay the revolutionary nature of Paglia's semi-stealth support of civil unions by saying that Paglia "simply affirmed the Church's long held defense of basic human dignity (which is a gift from God the Father as every person is made in His image), her defense of the unchangeable nature of marriage, and her desire that no one suffer unjust discrimination." No, Fr. Boquet, there was no "clarification", he has defended that homosexual partnership generates individual property rights and that is precisely the reasoning that has founded "civil partnerships" throughout the West.

First, of course, even if it were limited to inheritance, it would still be a grave matter: the highest official of the Church in family matters recognizes that homosexual activists are right, that is, that a "relationship" founded primarily on acts against nature generates individual property rights of any sort. Second, the notion of patrimonial rights in Civil Law is wide: what Paglia meant, in his first declaration, and in his worse "clarification", is that the Church, through him, sees a need for the protection of the individual rights of each "partner" in a counternatural relationship to all matters relating to the estate held by the "couple" - which is, after all, as we said earlier, the whole reasoning behind the various forms of "civil unions", "civil partnerships", or "PACS" created by law in several nations in the past few decades.

They may have evolved into more family-inspired units, for legal purposes, with rights of adoption, and even into "same-sex marriages", but the first step has always been to recognize mutual individual rights to what the law starts to view as a commonly-held estate, and other contribution-based rights - for instance, the right to "widow's pensions", which are after all also related to the proposition that the financial contributions to the public or private pension fund come from the common financial assets of the family unit. Once it is recognized that each individual in the "partnership" has individual rights to the estate and finances of the other, and their legal consequences, then obviously what is recognized is the very right of the "couple" to exist in Law. From this to a civil "homosexual marriage", it is merely a matter of degree, not of a founding jurisprudential basis - as it can be clearly seen in the ongoing legislative debates in Britain and France, in which "Civil Partnerships" or "PACS" have become the basis of wide parliamentary acceptance of the new definition of civil marriage and even of parenthood.

Unsurprisingly, the current Italian prime minister, Mario Monti - who also is  running his campaign for reelection, and who has in his cabinet none other than Andrea Riccardi, the leader and founder of Sant'Egidio, the liberal and ecumenical movement of which Abp. Paglia is the closest clergy associate -, has chosen the past few days to make clear that he is in favor of homosexual civil unions. And why? Pay attention:

The matter of rights of gay couples continues to agitate the electoral campaign. Mario Monti has spoken in favor of the "strengthening of the civil rights of homosexual couples" and adds that there are "some [rights], but I would like more".

Finally, he goes on to take into consideration even "marriage and adoptions", even though "somewhat beyond now", both in time and "in the degree of sensitivity". (Avvenire, Feb. 7)

Coincidence? It seems that certain Vatican officials in fact know all too well how to engage with "the man of today": with sound bites perfect for media organizations and that simply cannot be taken back. 

Abp. Paglia, clear or unclear? We report, you decide.

We are glad we were not the only ones to be left confused (cf. previous post) by the reported recent declarations of the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Abp. Vincenzo Paglia. Even a Vatican Radio interviewer had to ask him  today exactly what he meant. Is his response clear?

Q. - During your recent press conference in the Vatican, you spoke of individual rights, particularly those related to patrimonial questions. But some media have referred that you spoke of the recognition of the rights of gay couples. From your texts,* though, these affirmations do not [seem to] follow.

A. - I have obviously been very surprised by what some media have reported. Not only were the words not understood - and therefore the regard with which they were said were not understood - but in truth, and perhaps knowingly, they were, as it were, "derailed". Allow me this railroad metaphor: they were derailed from their track. And it is certain that, when the train is derailed, it does not reach the station, it risks running off a cliff. It is something else to examine if, in the existing [legal] systems, those norms that protect individual rights may be derived.** This is something completely different from the approval of certain possibilities. [Source: Radio Vaticana]

*We should add that no media source mentioned Paglia's words as having come from the prepared texts, they did not appear in them, but apparently from impromptu opinions made outside the prepared remarks.

**The very notion of homosexual civil partnerships (or civil unions, or PACS) exists primarily in order to assure the individual property rights of each "partner" regarding what is commonly held by the "couple" - which is why exlusively family law matters such as adoptions by such "couples" are not automatically granted by the legal recognition of these "partnerships" (for instance, the French PACS regulation does not allow joint adoption by the "partners"). So homosexual advocacy groups seem to be right when they see an opening, by the highest Vatican official on family matters, in the recognition of individual property rights to the commonly held assets derived from these "partnerships", an opening that is clear even in the above-quoted clarification.

In Dire Need of Clarification - II Abp. President of Family Council calls for recognition of same-sex civil unions and adulterous unions

The article published by Italian daily La Repubblica, from which the several translations were made available, includes the following declarations by the President of the Pontifical Council of the Family, Abp. Vincenzo Paglia, a bishop closely linked to the Community of  Sant'Egidio (original in Italian):

Vatican City - "No to gay marriage, but yes to the recognition of the rights for de facto and homossexual couples, according to the Civil Code ...". In the Catholic Church, revolution is sensed in the air in family and gay rights issues. The spokesman of this has surprisingly been Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, new president of the Pontifical Council for the family, at the presentation of the acts of the International Meeting on the Family, that took place in Milan last May. ... [Rorate note: Paglia's declarations to La Repubblica, and other media sources, were made following this media event held in the Vatican yesterday]

The "no" of the Church to gay marriage - Paglia says - is not a religious fact: "The Italian Constitution speaks very clearly, but even before it was Roman law that established what marriage was." ... But this does not mean - the prelate admits - that the rights of de facto couples, even gay ones, should not be recognized. In fact, "it is time that legislators concern themselves with it."

Paglia recognizes, moreover, that "non-familial gatherings" are "varied", and he assures the the Church is favorable "that, in this perspective, solutions of private law and patrimonial perspectives within the current Civil Code be found". ... It is also important to keep watch - Paglia warns - on the discrimination of homossexual persons throughout thw world: "Homossexuality is still prosecuted as a crime in over twenty countries".

...

The president of [Italian advocacy group] Gaynet, Franco Grillini, declares... that "for the first time a high prelate recognizes that the rights of homosexual couples also exist, and that there are many countries in the world where homosexuality is criminalized".

Paglia's words are pretty amazing - and an amazing contradiction of the words of the Pope himself, as recently as his December 2012 Christmas address. Pope Benedict XVI, in continuity with all Catholic Tradition, has always been opposed to granting rights that are proper to married couples to other unions - also because, as it is well-known throughout the West, this is always just a first step in the legal destruction of any meaning of marriage. Quite early in his pontificate he made it as clear as he could:

It is a serious error to obscure the value and roles of the legitimate family founded on marriage by attributing legal recognition to other improper forms of union for which there is really no effective social need. (Address, January 12, 2006)

The division in the very top of the Catholic hierarchy, the clear disobedience in the heart of the Roman Curia, is becoming untenable... And certain bishops have the gall of calling a relatively small group of Traditional priests in irregular canonical situation divisive!

In Dire Need of Clarification ...

The following comments are courtesy Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

While his meaning seems clear, out of charity, we kindly beg His Excellency for a clarification: is the archbishop speaking of celibate homosexuals, or practicing homosexuals - that is, plain sodomy, as still defined by statute in many jurisdictions? What, exactly, is he defending?

From Catholic News Service:

"While the church opposes recognizing gay unions as 'marriage,' he said, it affirms the full dignity of homosexual men and women. 'If a country outlawed homosexuality, I would work to overturn it,' he said, adding that he believed there are still '20 or 25 countries' that define homosexuality as a crime."