Posted on 08/27/2019 11:08:25 AM PDT by ebb tide
A name change, rewritten statutes, professors replaced, a revised order of studies. With Pope Francis an authentic earthquake has struck the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family - this being the original designation - founded by pope Karol Wojtyla in the early years of his pontificate and initially entrusted to the leadership of Carlo Caffarra, a theologian of great expertise on the subject and a future cardinal.
In the previous post, Settimo Cielo highlighted the justified revolt of numerous students and of many tenured professors against this revolution, a revolt that reached a point of no return after the public support given by pope emeritus Benedict XVI to the most authoritative of the purgees, former dean of the Institute Livio Melina:
> John Paul II Institute. The Revolt of the Professors Has a Leader, Ratzinger
It is unlikely, however, that Francis will backtrack. This can be deduced from the implacable determination with which he set the change in motion, with a maneuver planned for years and entirely brought down from above, implemented by his ever-faithful enforcer Vincenzo Paglia, the archbishop placed by the pope at the head of the Institute with the title of Grand Chancellor.
In comparison with Paglia, the role of the current dean of the Institute, Pierangelo Sequeri - a Milanese theologian of recognized expertise inexplicably adapted to this task - appears tenuous, unsteady, and entirely subordinate, as can be intuited from the timeline of events of the past two years, carefully reconstructed by the American vaticanista Diane Montagna for LifeSite News and reproduced a little further below on this page.
The timeline starts off with the appointment of Paglia as Grand Chancellor, in August of 2016, and with the motu prprio with which the following year Pope Francis changed the name - and prospectively the substance - of the Institute.
But there is a “before” that it is indispensable to recall, if one wants to understand even better how the offensive against the Institute created by John Paul II was launched right from the beginning of the pontificate of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
It is a “before” that has two revelatory elements.
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The first revelatory element is the list of participants in the first session of the synod on the family, in 2014. Where entirely missing is any representative at all from the Institute that theoretically should have been a leading actor in it.
Take care. This absence is not only from the list of the rightful participants in the synod, delegates of episcopal conferences and curia heads, but also from that of those invited by Francis. A sign that already back then in the pope’s mind the fate of the Institute was sealed, hand in hand with the predetermined outcome that he wanted to stamp on the synod, destined to give the go-ahead on Eucharistic communion for the divorced and remarried.
It is no coincidence that among the four cardinals who after the synod presented to Pope Francis their “dubia” on the doctrinal soundness of this outcome, was none other than Carlo Caffarra, the man who stands as a symbol of the history of the Institute.
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As for the second revelatory element, this is identified with Archbishop Paglia and his growing proximity to Pope Francis.
When Bergoglio was elected pope, in 2013, Paglia had been president of the pontifical council for the family for one year, promoted there by Benedict XVI with one of the most imprudent appointments of his pontificate.
Paglia was a prominent representative of the Community of Sant’Egidio and had been since 2000 the bishop of Terni, where he certainly did not bring to light, in the administration of earthly goods, the wisdom of the “pater familias.”
The confirmation came in the long and detailed farewell statement by the penultimate president of the IOR, the German Ernst von Freyberg, at the time of leaving his post in July of 2014.
In explanation of the meager surplus of the IOR in 2013, of just 2.9 million euro against the surplus of 86.6 million the year before, von Freyberg pointed out that the IOR had also had to put on the balance sheet “the depreciation of 3.2 million euro of financial support granted to the diocese of Terni.”
The reference was to the crash of the diocese that took place when its bishop was Paglia. The diocese was put into receivership and the IOR had to staunch a good half of the more than 20 million euro deficit.
But also as one of the highest ranking members of the Community of Sant’Egidio, Paglia had never shone for his competence on the subject of the family.
Throwing a dismal light on what was happening, in matters of family and marriage, behind the glowing facade of the Community of Sant’Egidio had been, in 2003, the request for the declaration of the nullity of his marriage sent to the diocesan tribunal of Rome by someone who had spent 25 years in the Community, and was married to a woman also of the Community.
To the request for nullity he attached a memoir. In which he documented not only how he had gotten married “under duress,” but also how his case was part of a more general authoritarian system that governed the Community of Sant’Egidio and that directed the engagements and marriages of its members at various levels.
The memoir came out in this article from www.chiesa:
> Twenty-Five Years in the Community of Sant'Egidio: A Memoir
The diocesan tribunal of Rome accepted the request, and in its definitive sentence decreed the marriage null “on account of force”.
And yet, miraculously, none of that damaged Paglia’s career, which rose even higher under the pontificate of Francis. Who in mid-August of 2016 appointed none other than him Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, with the order to change it from the foundations.
And this is the rest of the story.
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TIMELINE OF EVENTS REGARDING THE JOHN PAUL II INSTITUTE IN ROME
(by Diane Montagna for LifeSite News of August 20, 2019)
August 15, 2016:
Pope Francis appoints Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as Grand Chancellor of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family. Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri is subsequently appointed president.
September 8, 2017:
Pope Francis issues the Motu Proprio “Summa Familiae Cura,” causing the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family* to cease to exist, and replacing it with the “Pontifical Theological Institute for Sciences on Marriage and the Family.” The Motu Proprio states that the old statutes remain valid until new statutes are established.
The document is issued just days after the death of Cardinal Carlo Caffarra. Arguably the Church’s leading expert on marriage and the family for decades, Pope John Paul II gave Cardinal Caffarra the mandate to found the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in 1981.
The Institute’s establishment was to be announced at the Holy Father’s Wednesday audience on May 13, 1981. Because of the attempted assassination on Pope John Paul II, the Institute’s Apostolic Constitution, “Magnum Matrimonii Sacramentum,” was instead given on October 7, 1982, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. On that occasion the Institute was entrusted in a special way to the care of the most Blessed Virgin Mary under her title Our Lady of Fatima.
September 18, 2017:
At an Institute Council meeting in Rome, Archbishop Paglia and President Sequeri assure professors that the new statutes will be developed together with the Central Council.
June 6, 2018:
During the meeting of the Central Session in Rome of the Institute (made up of tenured professors, some representatives of non-tenured professors, the president and general secretary), President Pierangelo Sequeri, acting on the order of Archbishop Paglia, presents new statutes for discussion which no member of the Central Session had ever seen before. One of the immediate implications of these statutes was that all professors would immediately be suspended. The statutes also presented a clear decrease in the collegial work of the professors.
All of the professors respectfully but forcefully protested immediately, stating that such statutes were unacceptable and requesting that the Central Council work together on a proposal of new statutes that would be in continuity (organic development) with the old ones established by Pope John Paul II in founding the Institute in 1982.
February 20, 2019:
President Pierangelo Sequeri requests that all John Paul II Institute professors send to him course proposals for the next academic year (2019-2020), in order to set the Order of Studies (Ordo) for the 2019-2020 academic year.
Late March 2019:
New statutes that a committee had been working on in collaboration with President Sequeri since 2018 (10 months) were submitted to Archbishop Paglia, who had been informed each step of the way. President Sequeri told professors several times their proposed statutes would be taken into consideration.
April 10, 2019:
Msgr. Sequeri states at the Central Council meeting in Rome that the draft of the statutes prepared by the commission would be sent to the international sections so that they may, in turn, send back any corrections or suggestions to the Roman section before the International Institute Council (an international council with the rest of the sessions which takes place at the end of June) approved the final draft to be submitted to the Vatican Congregation for Education.
There was no such approval from the International Institute Council. It is possible that President Sequeri, acting under orders from his superiors, thought this was to be the case.
May 15, 2019:
Msgr. Sequeri states at another Central Council meeting in Rome that the International Institute Council would be the first interlocutor for the consultation of the new statutes. No such consultation occurred.
May 20, 2019:
Professors in Rome received a letter with course assignments for the 2019-2020 academic year, approved by Msgr. Sequeri and Archbishop Paglia, for all Programs offered at the Institute. The Programs included: Master of Studies on Marriage and the Family, Master in Bioethics, Master in Sexuality and Fertility (Italian and French), Master in Family-counseling, Master in Family Pastoral work, the brief Course on the Permanent Formation of Priests, and the Licentiate and Doctorate.
May 27, 2019:
The course listing brochure for all programs offered at the Institute (with names of the professors assigned to teach each course) is published. The brochure specifies that course registration for the 2019-2020 academic year would begin in June 2019. The brochure included the Laboratory of psychology for priests, which was to be launched in Nov. 2019 (see brochure online here).
June 1, 2019:
Registration for courses for the 2019-2020 academic year opens (see Order of Studies (Ordo), pg. 187, available online).
Also in early June 2019, the course descriptions for the Master and License Programs (which can be viewed respectively here and here) were made available online. They show the specific courses that Msgr. Melina, Prof. Grygiel and other JPII professors were set to teach during the 2019-2020 academic year.
July 18, 2019:
The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, publishes an article announcing that the new statutes for the John Paul II Institute have been approved by the Grand Chancellor, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, and by the Congregation for Education. Professors at the John Paul II Institute had not been informed of the approval of the new statutes and came to know about it through the media. The text of the statutes was not provided to the L’Osservatore Romano.
July 22, 2019:
All professors of the John Paul II Institute received a letter suspending them from teaching at the Institute. They also received (for the first time) a copy of the new statutes, only to see that the “new” statutes integrated many of the points that Msgr. Sequeri presented (at Archbishop Paglia’s instructions) in June 2018 but which the professors rejected. For twelve months, the professors had been led to believe that they would contribute to the formulation of the new statutes but, in fact, they were not.
President Sequeri publicly continues to claim that the new statutes are “in continuity” with those established under Pope John Paul II in 1982. Msgr. Sequeri also publicly states:
“The approval of the Statutes and Order of Studies is the result of a three-year process and dialogue initiated at the Institute’s headquarters, with the 12 Suburban Offices and Associated Centers and with the Congregation for Catholic Education.”
The professors forcefully disagree.
The new Order of Studies suspends all five Masters programs, together with the Course on the Permanent Formation of Priests.
The only programs that remain from the original Order of Studies (which were approved by Grand Chancellor Paglia and President Sequeri at the end of May 2019 – see above) are the Licentiate and Doctorate.
July 23, 2019:
Monsignor Livio Melina and Professor José Noriega receive a letter of dismissal from teaching at the new Institute, on the following basis:
- Msgr. Melina is told that the Chair of Fundamental Moral Theology established at the wish of Pope John Paul II and first held by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, has been eliminated.
- Prof. Noriega is told that his position as General Superior of his religious congregation is incompatible with the position of a tenured professor at the new Institute.
Neither Msgr. Melina nor Prof. Noriega received any prior communication regarding these reasons and were thus given no prior possibility to defend themselves or challenge the Grand Chancellor’s decision.
July 24 onward:
Seven additional professors (Stanislaw Grygiel, Maria Luisa Di Pietro, Monika Grygiel, Vittorina Marini, Jaroslaw Kupczak, Sergio Belardinelli, and Przemyslaw Kwiatkowski) receive a letter of dismissal from their teaching positions.
Some are told that their courses were eliminated on the economic grounds. Some are also told that the Institute hopes to offer a cycle of courses in the future but the same professors are not told that they retain their positions at the new Institute.
Ping
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