Posted on 09/27/2017 5:52:38 AM PDT by ebb tide
The President of the Pontifical Academy for Life has defended the Pope’s recent replacement of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family with a school focused on Amoris Laetitia, and argues it is in fact a revamping of pro-life efforts.
In the same interview, he said being pro-life encompasses opposing gun violence, support of immigration, and environmentalism, and claimed Pope St. John Paul II laid the way for Church approval of Communion for adulterers.
In addition to heading the Vatican pro-life academy, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia is the Grand Chancellor of the new Amoris Laetitia-focused school, the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.
Paglia told Crux's John Allen that the Pope’s transformation of the Institute is “about growth.”
The Institute “couldn’t just stay like it was,” Paglia said, because of changes “both in the awareness of the Church and also the social, cultural and anthropological conditions of the world.”
The John Paul II Institute has long been seen as a stronghold of Catholic orthodoxy. Before the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, two professors of the former Institute authored a book arguing against allowing Holy Communion for the divorced and "remarried" without an annulment.
He said that Pope St. John Paul II began the “revolution” in the Church for Communion for the divorced and remarried, and that Pope Francis is carrying this on as the saint’s “best interpreter.”
“Pope Francis has carried forward, lifted up, certain intuitions present in Familiaris Consortio that weren’t really made explicit in a terribly high-profile way,” said Paglia.
A “clear example” of this “is the divorced and remarried.”
“The real revolution there happened under John Paul II, not Francis, which hasn’t really yet been understood,” said Paglia. “You have to remember that before [Familiaris Consortio], it wasn’t that the divorced and remarried just couldn’t get Communion, it was they were practically excommunicated and expelled. They were outsiders. After John Paul, everybody was inside the house … I can’t just send them out on the terrace!”
In Familiaris Consortio, Pope St. John Paul II wrote:
...the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.
Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples."
Whether Amoris Laetitia opened the door to changing the Church’s perennial practice, which John Paul II defended in Familiaris Consortio, has been the subject of debate ever since its release.
Pope Francis hasn’t responded to the dubia, or formal request, of four cardinals asking him point-blank whether his exhortation makes this radical change. However, he did explicitly endorse guidelines allowing Communion for the divorced and remarried, saying "there is no other interpretation."
Paglia said Amoris Laetitia will be the “Magna Carta” of the new school and that “the direction that the new institute will take is strictly connected to” the controversial exhortation.
“An institute like ours needs to be able to preserve the treasure of the experience of the work the Church has already done in this area, but now to offer instruments for formation, for priests and for families, so we can truly live this new situation” of family issues, said Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri, the president of the new Institute.
“If we’re just scared by everything and try to pull ourselves out of what’s happening, you can have all the doctrine you want, but it doesn’t accomplish anything,” he said.
Paglia, who has previously defended the recent appointment of an abortion supporter to the pro-life academy he heads, told Allen he “won’t allow anyone to be more ‘pro-life’ than me.”
“I want to be pro-life from the beginning, all the way to the end, and just that,” said Paglia. “I also want to be pro-life in all the conditions and situations of life.”
He explained that to him, this means refusing to “accept” the death penalty, “that immigrants die on the streets,” or that more people in the U.S. have been shot than were murdered in the Twin Towers on 9/11.
“I believe that the time has arrived in which the Church must take up the defense of life in a global sense, including the ecological question,” said Paglia, noting he “told the American bishops this in February.”
The archbishop said he “certainly” thinks the Church should be open to partnering with feminists to fight surrogacy, something Allen suggested could be one of its “new alliances.”
Paglia commissioned a homoerotic mural in which he is depicted for his former cathedral. He also oversaw the development of a sex-ed program that a psychiatrist said contained material similar to what sex abusers use to groom victims.
Liar....liar......pants on fire!!
I am not a theologian, just a run of the mill Catholic. But I hate when the church doles out its services as a reward. Jesus does not do that. He often rewarded sinners. As far as I am concerned the church should not be in the business of limiting the path to god.
I understand if the church feels that people are not taking a sacrament seriously, you may withhold because its not a sacrament if people don’t take it seriously. Hence Pre-Cana showed up, as a way to get people to take marriage seriously.
But to punish people for one sin by withholding a separate sacrament is just not in the biblical teachings. And lay Catholics really have no right to judge each other. God holds that job for himself.
Continual fornication outside of sacramental marriage is not just "one sin".
Even bishops can lie.
I get it, but our job is to love God and love our neighbor as we love God. Our job is not judge of our neighbor.
Loving your neighbor doesn't mean sleeping with her.
Do you not sin every day? Yet you are allowed to take communion are you not?
I have a difficult time believing this, too.
Woodward and Bernstein were right. Follow the money.
This is all about attracting divorced and remarried Catholics back to the weekly collection basket. The Cardinals know this, and the overwhelming majority are on board.
Any thoughts that Bergoglio is going to be deposed or corrected through the Dubia are a pipedream.
Do you not sin every day? Yet you are allowed to take communion are you not?
Otherwise, if the sin is venial, or minor, such as telling a white lie, or yelling at your wife, then it does not prevent you from receiving.
I am not a theologian, but a lay person.
Interesting how they cite JPII as the inspiration to do what he explicitly said should not be done? The spin and double speak is amazing.
Not judging does not mean just go along with whatever they do. Real love means taking up the difficult task of calling out someone for doing wrong. If we fail to take the loving act of warning someone away from sin then we have to answer for that.
From the prophet Ezekiel 33:8-9:
If I tell the wicked, “O wicked one, you shall surely die,” and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way the wicked shall die for his guilt but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked, trying to turn him from his way and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt but you shall save yourself.
These bishops and priests who encourage this will have much to answer for.
Are you free to sin at will, thus never repenting then feel entitled for cheap Grace? Many are called but few are chosen. Christ is not a sucker for the cheap Grace express and “dogs” swallowing vomit.
This is actually true to some extent. In JPII's Code of Canon Law (1983), there is no mention of excommunication of the divorced and remarried. However, the 1917 Code of Canon Law mentions that such couples could be excommunicated.
Ok, warn the wicked. But don’t deny them church. Your job is not judge, you have no punishment in your arsenal, just advise.
The Sacrament of Penance is always readily available to them, if they decide on true repentance for their sins and a firm resolve to sin no more. But pertinacious sinners can't be pampered to.
Using your logic unrepentant rapists, child-molesters, homosexuals, murderers, abortionists, et al, should not be denied the sacraments.
Are you really a Catholic?
Should the Catholic Church not deny a homosexual "couple" the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony?
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