Laudato si’ Week recalls encyclical’s sixth anniversary

Vatican City, Mar 6, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- Vatican City has confirmed its first case of coronavirus, a Vatican spokesman said Friday.

All outpatient services in Vatican City State’s Health and Hygiene Department were suspended March 6 to allow… […]

Vatican City, Nov 2, 2017 / 07:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A former member of the Pontifical Academy for Life has launched an independent organization he claims will work to “unfold the splendor of truth about life and family.”

Josef Seifert, president of the new lay-run John Paul II Academy for Human Life and Family, announced the academy Oct. 18 in Rome at a conference on the topic of Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical “Humanae Vitae.”

“The academy’s aim is to clarify, to teach and to spread that part of the truth about man and about God that serves human life and the natural family, and, through serving these, serves and glorifies God,” said Seifert.

Seifert, a philosophy professor from Austria, has taught at the University of Dallas. He was founding rector of the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein. Until recently, he had served as Dietrich von Hildebrand Chair for Realist Phenomenology at the International Academy of Philosophy-Instituto de Filosofía Edith Stein.

He has said he was forced to retire for asking whether parts of Pope Francis’ 2016 post-synodal exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” led to the conclusion that there are no intrinsically wrong acts. He had previously been suspended from teaching seminarians, following the publication of a different essay criticizing the exhortation.

According to Seifert, the new organization aims to serve the same goals as the original Pontifical Academy for Life, founded in 1994 by St. John Paul II. This academy will be “a lay non-governmental organization that will remain independent of civil and religious organizations.”

The Pontifical Academy for Life is a team of scientists and ethicists representing different branches of biomedical sciences who are appointed by the Holy Father to work with Vatican dicasteries to discuss issues related to science and the protection of the dignity of human life. Under Pope Francis, its new statutes explicitly advocate care for the human person “at different stages of life” as well as an authentic “human ecology” that aims to restore balance in creation “between the human person and the entire universe.”

The American members of this academy appointed or confirmed by Pope Francis include Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus; John M. Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia; and Kathleen M. Foley, M.D., attending neurologist in the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and professor of neurology, neuroscience, and clinical pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine of Cornell University.

In Nov. 2016, Pope Francis promulgated new statutes for the Pontifical Academy for Life, withdrawing the lifetime appointments of 139 members, including Seifert.  While 28 members were reappointed in June 2017, Seifert was not among them.

The academy’s new statutes explicitly allow non-Catholics to be appointed to the pontifical academy, and establish that new members would no longer be required to sign a statement promising to defend life according to Catholic teaching.

Some new appointees were criticized for apparent disagreement with Catholic teaching on questions like euthanasia.

Seifert said his new lay academy includes several former members of the pontifical academy. Most of these were lifetime members. The members of the new lay academy are “deeply committed” to the original pontifical academy and its goals as envisioned by St. John Paul II, he said. Their Catholic members are, in his words, “fully faithful to the authentic Magisterium and perennial doctrine of the Catholic Church,” while open to the truths of human reason. Membership in this lay academy is also open to non-Catholics.

The independent academy will also consider medical, social and health developments; “anti-life and gender ideology”; topics like “brain death”; and the ethics of death and transplant medicine.

In his remarks introducing the new lay academy, Seifert was critical of a “new emphasis on subjective conscience that would justify committing adultery, homosexual relations or even abortion subjectively.” He opposed the claim that God would want people to commit acts like adultery “because leaving our new partner might lead us to greater sins and cause greater evils.”

He emphasized the importance of John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, encyclical Veritatis Splendor, and Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae to the new academy.

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Vatican City, Feb 28, 2018 / 08:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In their latest round of meetings, Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals discussed several key topics related to episcopal conferences, the need to lower costs inside the Vatican, and efforts to speed up procedures dealing with cases of abuse.

This week’s meetings took place Feb. 26-28 at the Vatican. All members were present except for Cardinal George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, who is in Australia facing charges of past sexual abuse.

Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa from the Democratic Republic of the Congo arrived late due to weather. As usual, Pope Francis was present for all sessions apart from Wednesday morning, when he holds the weekly general audience.

According to a Feb. 28 Vatican communique, the Council of Cardinals – made up of nine prelates from around the world who advise the Pope on matters of Church governance and reform – focused specifically on the theological statue of episcopal conferences.

The cardinals based their discussion on Evangelii Gaudium 32, which states that “Excessive centralization, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach.”

In this spirit, it was suggested that John Paul II’s 1998 motu propio “Apostolos Suos” on the theological and judicial nature of episcopal conferences be re-read, thinking of “the healthy decentralization” of which Pope Francis often speaks.

Discussion also touched on human resources and keeping an eye on containing costs within the Vatican.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich spoke on the topic of human resources and presented the ongoing work of the Council for the Economy, which falls under the umbrella of the wider Secretariat for the Economy.

Specifically, the council is currently studying proposals to outline the skills of a “control-room” of-sorts for human resources.

According to the Vatican communique, Marx in his presentation also referred to the “positive progress” being made in the area of presenting the Vatican balance sheets, of maintaining costs and reducing the Holy See’s deficit.

In this regard, he said the council has decided to draw up guidelines for the institutions of the Holy See, aimed at reducing cost.

Archbishop Jan Romeo Pawlowski also spoke during the meeting about the progress of the third department of the Secretariat of State, which is tasked with managing the Pope’s diplomatic corps, who are stationed throughout the world. The department, headed by Pawlowski, is named “Section for the Diplomatic Staff.”

Though he’s not a member of the Pope’s advisory council, Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the dicastery for Integral Human Development, was also present to give an update on the progress of his office and its activities.

Specific mention was made of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the cardinals discussing different options to accelerate the process for handling cases of the sexual abuse of minors that come their way.

Other topics discussed were the Congregations for Oriental Churches and the Evangelization of Peoples.

The next round of meetings for the Council of Cardinals is set to take place in Rome April 23-25.

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