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Posted on 02/20/2026 5:38:19 PM PST by ebb tide
On February 16, Mariana Mazzucato, an influential economist and ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, delivered an address during the Academy’s plenary meeting in Rome, as part of a two-day event entitled “International Workshop – Healthcare for All. Sustainability and Equity.” The workshop focused on “the economics of healthcare for all,” according to the program, and took place within the Vatican institution founded in 1994 by John Paul II for the defence of human life.
Mariana Mazzucato was appointed as an ordinary member of the Academy on October 15, 2022, a position she has held since then. The appointment drew criticism, particularly in the United States, due to Mazzucato’s publicly expressed support for abortion rights in relation to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.
Speaking to journalists while returning from a trip to Bahrain in November 2022, Pope Francis personally defended the decision. “Women know how to find the right path; they know how to move forward. And now I have appointed Mariana Mazzucato to the Pontifical Academy for Life. She is a great economist from the United States, and I appointed her to bring a bit more humanity to this body,” he said.
Archbishop Paglia responded at the time by emphasising the interdisciplinary character of the Academy. He stated that the institution includes “women and men with expertise in various disciplines and coming from different backgrounds, for a constant and fruitful interdisciplinary, intercultural, and inter‑religious dialogue.” He further noted that among the Academy’s members are non‑Catholics, including “two rabbis, a Shinto scholar, Muslims, and an Anglican theologian,” explaining that the Academy functions as a centre for study and research where debate takes place among individuals from diverse backgrounds.
The Pontifical Academy for Life has been led by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia since 2016. Paglia has publicly expressed support for Italy’s Law 194 regulating abortion, a position that has generated criticism among pro-life Catholics. He is also a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, an international and progressive lay movement founded by highly controversial Andrea Riccardi. Several cardinals widely regarded as close to Pope Francis — including Matteo Zuppi, Jean-Marc Aveline, and José Cobo Cano — have been members of or closely connected to Sant’Egidio.
The broader issue concerns the trajectory of the Pontifical Academy for Life itself. Founded in 1994 by John Paul II as a body explicitly devoted to the defence of human life in conformity with Catholic moral doctrine, the Academy underwent a substantial restructuring under Pope Francis, including the removal of the requirement that members formally adhere to the Church’s pro-life teaching in 2016. This reform effectively diluted the Academy’s original mandate, transforming it into a platform for ideologically heterogeneous debates.
The presence of figures such as Mazzucato — publicly aligned with pro-choice positions and closely associated with global policy frameworks linked to the UN’s 2030 Agenda — reinforces the perception that the Academy has become a meeting place for ideas largely external to the Church.
The recent plenary confirms Francis’ line. The presence of figures such as Mazzucato — publicly aligned with pro-choice positions and closely associated with global policy frameworks linked to the UN’s 2030 Agenda — reinforces the perception that the Academy has become a meeting place for ideas largely external to the Church. In this respect, the current pontificate of Pope Leo XIV seems to be proceeding, at least thus far, without any decisive correction of the line established under Francis — assuming that such a correction is intended at all.
Mazzucato has also addressed economic and environmental themes within global forums such as the World Economic Forum in Davos. She is indeed one of the most internationally recognised contemporary economists. Her academic work argues that the State should act not merely as a market regulator but as an entrepreneurial agent capable of directing innovation and shaping economic transformation. Her publications include volumes on the role of public investment and the “restructuring of capitalism”.
In 2022, she spoke of a “new economics of water,” describing water as a “global common” comparable to defence or public health and linking the issue to the broader “ecological transition.” By framing water governance within the language of collective emergency, her intervention was situated in the wider debate on “ecological crisis management” that informs the 2030 Agenda coordinated by the United Nations.
Impending worldwide water emergency is invoked to support stronger forms of public coordination and supranational policy direction, while scientific assessments on the scale and immediacy of a unified “planetary” water crisis remain the subject of ongoing debate within the research community.
Also, Mazzucato “joined global leaders attending the World Economic Forum in Davos 2024”. The general theme of that edition was “rebuilding trust” between the public and the political and financial elite, while also developing a “long‑term strategy” to address the alleged climate and energy emergencies.
Pope Leo aligns more closely with the so-called Consistent Ethic of Life (CEL), a model theory associated with Cardinal Blase Cupich, which proposes a moral continuum linking abortion, capital punishment, war, migration policy, healthcare, and social inequality under a single ethical paradigm.
She is also identified internationally as a reference figure for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the body responsible for coordinating the implementation of the UN’s development agenda. UNDESA oversees the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a framework of 17 goals adopted by member states to address poverty, inequality, and environmental sustainability.
In light of these events as well, which continue to occur under Leo XIV, a more fundamental question concerns the bioethical framework implicitly guiding the current pontificate. The classical pro-life position articulated by John Paul II — most systematically in Evangelium Vitae — and reaffirmed by Benedict XVI, rested upon a hierarchical moral structure grounded in natural law. Within that framework, intrinsic evils such as abortion and euthanasia were identified as pre-eminent moral issues because they directly violate innocent human life.
By contrast, Pope Leo aligns more closely with the so-called Consistent Ethic of Life (CEL), a model theory associated with Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and subsequently promoted by Cardinal Blase Cupich, both progressive pastors of the Diocese of Chicago. This approach - explicitly endorsed by Cardinal Prevost during a public speech on October 14, 2023, in Chiclayo, Peru - proposes a moral continuum linking abortion, capital punishment, war, migration policy, healthcare, and social inequality under a single ethical paradigm.
While presented as an “expansion” of pro‑life concern, this theory flattens the moral hierarchy by placing intrinsically evil acts and prudential socio‑political questions on the same analytical plane, thereby weakening both the reference to divine and natural law as the fundamental framework of Catholic bioethics and the very notion of sinfulness involved in endorsing such acts.
If the CLE is applied consistently, one must conclude that supporting strict immigration policies carries the same moral weight as supporting the so‑called “right to abortion”. But this has the practical effect of reducing the distinction between pro‑life and pro‑choice to an ordinary political debate, stripping it of its specific moral significance.
According to Catholic Traditional ethics, it’s not possible to place abortion and capital punishment on the same level — as Pope Leo himself did on October 1, when he stated: “Someone who says: I’m against abortion but I’m in favor of the death penalty is not really pro‑life. So, someone who says: I’m against abortion but in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants, I don’t know if that’s pro‑life,” adding: “I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them.”
Perhaps the Church does?
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Perhaps the Church does?
Imagine a pope who says, "I don't know if anyone has all the truth on them.
Or the same pope who tells heretics and schismatics, ""No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and seek it together".
Ping
I am glad that my relationship with God doesn’t have to be relied by a church’s orientation.
I am glad that my relationship with God doesn’t have to be relied by a church’s orientation.
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