Conference to focus on controversial Pontifical Academy for Life book

Presented by the International Catholic Jurists Forum, the December 8-10 conference in Rome will feature an impressive array of over two dozen Catholic theologians, philosophers, canon lawyers, and other scholars, discussing contraception, homosexuality, gender ideology, and moral theology.

The Column of the Immaculate Conception in central Rome. (Image: Monopoli91/Wikipedia); right: St. Peter's Basilica, Piazza San Pietro, Vatican City. (Image: Fr. Barry Braum/Wikipedia)

What is the doctrinal status of the Church’s teaching against contraception? How is Catholic teaching on contraception supported by Scripture, Christian anthropology, and the natural law? What is meant by the “radical paradigm change” mentioned by Archbishop Paglia in his Presentation and Pope Francis in his 2018 apostolic constitution, Veritatis Gaudium? How is Catholic moral theology related to contraception, the right to life, gender ideology, including homosexuality, transgenderism?

These and related questions will be the focus this Thursday through Saturday, December 8-10, at a conference in Rome presented by the International Catholic Jurists Forum. Co-sponsored by the Ave Maria Law School, Ave Maria University, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the conference will feature an impressive array (PDF) of over two dozen Catholic theologians, philosophers, canon lawyers, and other scholars.

Those scholars include Deborah Savage (Franciscan University, Steubenville), Robert Fastiggi (Sacred Heart Major Seminary ), Helen M. Alvaré (George Mason University), Janet E. Smith (Sacred Heart Major Seminary , retired), Fr. Peter Ryan, S.J. (Sacred Heart Major Seminary ), Mary Eberstadt (Faith and Reason Institute; Catholic Information Center, Washington, DC), Abigail Favale (University of Notre Dame), Matthew Levering (Mundelein Seminary), Fr. Piotr Mazurkiewicz (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw), Angela Franks (St. John’s Seminary), John Finnis (University of Notre Dame), Eduardo Echeverria (Sacred Heart Major Seminary ),  Monsignor Livio Melina (Veritas Amoris Project), and several others.

The conference is in response to the controversial publication, from the Pontifical Academy for Life, entitled Theological Ethics of Life. Scripture, tradition, practical challenges (Etica teologica della Vita. Scrittura, tradizione, sfide pratiche). That document, published by the Vatican Publishing House, was the result of an October 2021 seminar on ethics in which participants discussed “the possible legitimacy of contraception in certain cases.” Responding to Pope Francis’s statement that “the duty of theologians is research, theological reflection,” the December 8-10 conference, its site states, “seeks to respond to some of the important questions raised in Etica teologica, especially those connected with sexual morality, objective moral norms, and conscience.”

Robert Fastiggi, one of organizers of the conference, explains that while he doesn’t believe “most of the chapters” in the Theological Ethics of Life volume “are advocating radical departures from Catholic moral theology,” questions have been raised “about issues related to the role of conscience, intrinsically evil acts, and the normative status of Humanae Vitae with respect to concrete moral choices.”

He and Jane Adolphe of Ave Maria School of Law produced the concept note for the upcoming conference. “We wanted to make it clear,” he explains, “that the conference is not meant to be oppositional but constructive.” Fastiggi’s talk will be on “Catholic Sexual Morality and the problem of dissent,” and will discuss the response in 1968 to the publication of Humanae Vitae and subsequent responses and events, including the statement, Human Life in Our Day, from the U.S. bishops, which supported Pope Paul VI’s encyclical but contained a brief section on “norms for licit dissent.”

“Fr. Charles Curran and others,” notes Fastiggi, “used these norms as alleged support for their dissent not only from Humanae Vitae but also from other moral teachings such as those related to fornication and homosexual acts. … In my talk, I will argue that Catholic teachings related to contraception, fornication, and homosexual acts are definitive and infallible. Dissent, therefore, is not legitimate. … There can be legitimate development in pastoral approaches to those who do not follow proper sexual morality. These pastoral approaches, though, cannot approve of acts that are contrary to the natural law, Scripture, and magisterial teaching.”

Co-organizer Deborah Savage, in remarking on the Theological Ethics of Life book, says “it may not surprise anyone to know that this document seems to point toward a new but at the same time quite clear ‘ambiguity’ toward the Church’s teaching on contraception, expressed definitively in Humanae Vitae and considered infallible Catholic teaching for six decades or so. This conference is an effort to defend against any attempt to erode that teaching at a time when it seems most clearly at risk. The conference has an air of urgency to it as we try to mount a defense.”

Her presentation, titled “Man and Woman,” focuses on anthropological fundamentals. “We need to understand more clearly the anthropology at the heart of the unitive and procreative dimensions of the marital act.” Pope St. John Paul II Theology of the Body, she says, is vital, but more work needs to be done. “I have taken it as my task to articulate a robust account of man and woman – one that presents a coherent framework for understanding both their equality (in the sense both are equally human) and what constitutes their difference. … I will show that any ambiguity on the teaching of Humanae Vitae will be the final betrayal of both men and women – but women in particular – who are reduced to objects of sexual pleasure when the unity of the procreative and unitive dimensions are compromised.”

“As a culture,” Savage emphasizes, “we have completely underestimated the meaning of human sexuality as an essential element in anthropology and, as a result, we are committing a slow form of suicide. Those ready to jettison the teaching of Humanae Vitae don’t seem to understand this.”

Fr. Ryan echoes these same concerns, remarking that the book from the Pontifical Academy for Life has “caused some to wonder whether the Church’s moral teaching on controversial issues like contraception and sexual activity apart from the one-flesh union of a man and a woman in marriage, can and should be changed.”

He points to the recent comments by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J., of Luxembourg, the relator general of the Synod of Bishops, about whether the Church has the power to bless “same-sex unions.” It is “hard to avoid the impression,” says Fr. Ryan, “that the statements are designed to communicate the Cardinal’s disagreement with that teaching without having to say so clearly. The conference is an opportunity to address, among other topics, the question such statements leave us with, namely, whether the teaching can or cannot be changed.”

One of Fr. Ryan’s two talks is titled “Catholic Teaching on Sexual Morality and the Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium,” and it argues, he says, “that the Church’s teaching on the grave evil of engaging in nonmarital sexual activity meets the conditions set out in Lumen gentium, 25, for the infallibility of the ordinary and universal magisterium.”

“People who are tempted to engage in such activity need support in their efforts to live chaste lives,” he adds, “and one especially important way theologians and pastoral ministers can provide that support is to communicate their concerns with conviction. But they cannot do so unless they themselves are convinced of the truth of the teaching. The fact that it has been, as I argue, proposed infallibly by the ordinary universal magisterium is a gift that enables them to offer that support.”

Fr. Ryan emphasizes that in addition certainty about the Church’s teaching, people also “need the grace of the Holy Spirit to empower them to resist temptations that initially may seem all but irresistible.” But if “theologians and those entrusted with their spiritual welfare give them the impression that nonmarital sexual activity is not gravely wrong, poses no real risk to their salvation, and can even be appropriate and good,” then they “are unlikely to turn to God and wholeheartedly beseech him for the grace to resist temptation…”

Mary Eberstadt, who has written books on the Sexual Revolution, familial breakdown, and the effects of contraception, points out that Pope Francis recently observed that “Ideologies ruin things!” And that, she says, “is exactly why the ICJF conference is necessary. Today, a particular ideology threatens the Church. This ideology is based on capitulation to the perceived demands of the sexual revolution. Its goal is to roll back bedrock teachings about life and marriage, so that post-revolutionary Catholics can enjoy permission to return to pre-Christian, pagan norms about sex.”

This ideology, she says, is not new. “It has been ascending across the West for decades now. Cliched though its thinking is, the attendant errors continue to demand calm clarification and rebuttal.”

Her presentation at the conference will focus on “countering ideological abstractions with essential, verifiable, and overlooked facts. History, sociology, and other academic disciplines offer copious proofs of what the sexual revolution has wrought — and hence, why capitulation of the kind now being urged remains wrong. … Unlike decades ago, the days of claiming ignorance about the revolution’s fallout are over. So, ipso facto, is the ideological case for capitulation to the revolution itself.”

“This conference is necessary now,” explains Eduardo Echeverria, “because the Church’s normative teaching on marriage … her teaching on the foundations of morality, including sexual ethics, and the significance of moral absolutes are all currently under attack, with dissenters calling for a revision of all this teaching.”

His presentation will critique the so-called “radical paradigm change” in light of the teaching of St. Vincent of Lerins on doctrinal development and the moral teaching of St. John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor. That paradigm change, he says, is “a perpetual hermeneutics of recontextualizing and reinterpreting the deposit of faith,” which undermines an authentic pastoral approach to moral questions and challenges.

The Pontifical Academy for Life has become, says Angela Franks, “the forum for some theologians to contest the intrinsically evil nature of contraception. The methodology of these thinkers has already been addressed and critiqued two pontificates ago, with John Paul II’s examination of moral theology in Veritatis Splendor and his body of writings on human sexuality.” The recent book from the Academy, while presented “as a development in moral theology, is in fact a regressive move.”

Franks’ presentation, titled “Disordered Desire and Contraception,” addresses “the nature of human desire before and after the Fall. Some moral theology presumes a very optimistic view of fallen human sexuality, as though it is reliably ordered to and motivated by love. I will use St. Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of desire to show that, without a natural end, desire tends towards self-centeredness, even and especially in the powerful realm of sexuality.”

“Contraception,” she notes, “structurally removes the natural end of procreation from the sexual act and thereby opens it up to self-chosen and self-centered ends. Surely we have enough information, over fifty years into the sexual revolution, to keep us from naivete about how destructive self-centered sex can be.”

The conference, which begins at 9:00am (Rome time) on Thursday, December 8th, will be livestreamed.

For more information about the conference, see this PDF with a complete listing of participants, presentations, and times.

(Editor’s note: Sacred Heart Major Seminary was incorrectly referred to as Sacred Heart University. That error has been corrected.)


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About Carl E. Olson 1229 Articles
Carl E. Olson is editor of Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight. He is the author of Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?, Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"?, co-editor/contributor to Called To Be the Children of God, co-author of The Da Vinci Hoax (Ignatius), and author of the "Catholicism" and "Priest Prophet King" Study Guides for Bishop Robert Barron/Word on Fire. His recent books on Lent and Advent—Praying the Our Father in Lent (2021) and Prepare the Way of the Lord (2021)—are published by Catholic Truth Society. He is also a contributor to "Our Sunday Visitor" newspaper, "The Catholic Answer" magazine, "The Imaginative Conservative", "The Catholic Herald", "National Catholic Register", "Chronicles", and other publications. Follow him on Twitter @carleolson.

13 Comments

  1. To be constructive rather than oppositional, Dr Fastiggi envisions a reasoned appeal designed to convince rather than further an already increasing fracture within the Church. The project is quite important at a time when laity including many clergy require clear articulation of the faith. The persons described leading the conference are well chosen.

    • “Laity and Clergy require clear articulation of the faith” during the total eclipse of the Hierachy of the See of Rome.

      The sentence needed completing Fr Peter?
      Total Confusion and persecution reigns since 13.05.2013.

  2. The Pontifical Academy for Life should be dissolved and Gay Porn Mural Paglia laicized. It’s credibility as an authoritative moral voice has been completely destroyed.

      • It is long overdue that the remaining orthodox prelates in the Church take a united bold action in defense of orthodoxy. What Cardinal Mueller did several weeks ago in describing a virtual takeover of the Church was wonderful, but there needs to be more, something like an open letter draft defending orthodoxy in specific terms, signed on by dozens of prelates from around the world and published widely and promoted loudly and repeatedly, so that Francis, and the world press, cannot ignore it like they did with the Dubia.

  3. Thank God. The voices for Life, already so marginalized by this malodorous papacy, need to be forceful with Paglia, Hollerich and Rupnik, all neatly ensconced in the vitals of our Church.

  4. The Church getting ready to celebrate the glorious occasion of the Immaculate Conception ..the ‘Noon Hour of Grace ‘ that inlcude Psalm 51 recited X 3 – with its mourning -‘I was concieved in sin..’

    https://www.queenoftheholyrosaryshrine.com/Hour_of_Grace.pdf

    The deep yearning in hearts to love God, in need to make reparation – God blessing our times in His mercy in the deeper means for same to thus also help mankind with the flood waters of carnal evils – ? as a fruit of frustration / blocks in requitting God’s Love .

    The Divine Will revelations related to The Sacred Heart reveal same to an extent – all such to make participation in the Holy Mass more beneficial .

    https://luisapiccarreta.me/feasts/feast-of-the-sacred-heart-of-jesus-in-the-kingdom-of-the-divine-will#:~:text=It%20is%20not%20the%20Heart,holy%2C%20the%20heart%20is%20holy.

    The Precious Blood Devotions also with focus on same – the publication below said to be free from some controversy / errors said to be prevailing in some quarters on the said devotion –

    http://www.queenship.org/product/devotion-to-the-most-precious-blood-3041a.html

    The words of the Holy Father recently that led to some stir , akin to previous such occasions – in a life carried by The Spirit ( as mentioned here –
    https://ignatius.com/the-holy-spirit-fire-of-divine-love-digital-hsfdle/ )

    – words of Holy Father that an unborn is ‘ a human being ‘ – ? meant to convey the dignity of the baby in being so very like and linked to the Sacred Humanity of The Lord, who is not given a separate ‘Person ‘ status in same , yet … thus highlighting the precious link uniting the baby to the parents and the human family –
    even being in the mystery of loving The Lord and others .. how violence / evil to one such touches all around ..

    The questione being raised in these areas – the topic of the article –
    Holy Father likley well aware how same can help to move The Church and the world to a deeper awareness of the marvelous truths of The Spirit – to help remove the effects of the shame and guilt that came in after The Fall to instead bring the blessedness in acts of reparation for what is owed to God, as the answer to the questions / pleas being raised …all for His Glory !

  5. And, so, we now are reminded how also in the 4th Century it was the laity who persevered in the Faith, following the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). Most, but not all, of the bishops went along with Arianism–probably just an early relapse into a false notion of “fraternal collegiality.”

    As St. Jerome so wonderfully summarized: “The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian.” And, today, “the whole Church groans, and is astonished to find itself secularized, double-speakerized, homosexualized and Germanized!

    So, again, here we have the laity turning the lights on, right there in Rome no less, amidst the modernday barbarians! May the written results find a larger audience than Paglia’s homoerotic and self-referential mural and his current clown act in a red hat.

    Delighted, too, to see that the conference agenda augments Humanae Vitae not only with Veritatis Splendor, but also with St. John Paul II’s explanatory richness in “The Theology of the Body.”

  6. Responding here to editor Olson’s identification of Eduardo Echeverria slated to present on radical paradigm change “recontextualizing and reinterpreting the deposit of faith” as undermining a [true] pastoral approach, indeed. Archbishop Paglia will see to that.
    There is in the concept of paradigm change one view expressed by Fr Antonio Spadaro SJ that is consistent with presumed measured approach of loosening the doctrinal bindings found in Amoris Laetitia. If Spadaro is content with that, there are nevertheless premises in Amoris, conscientious primacy, mitigation [as such the questioning of intrinsic evil] that neutralize binding doctrine, and which allow Card Hollerich, and as Echeverria contends, Archbishop Paglia to promote radical paradigmatic change to previously held perennial Apostolic doctrine, the very Deposit of faith.
    A primary point of concern is where the person who ultimately matters in all this, His Holiness Francis stands. Will the presenters dare to question a pontificate that by indication stretches beyond an openly expressed intent to measuredly loosen [in agreement with Spadaro] binding doctrine for sake of a realistic, compassionate Church meeting the needs of the wounded – although who at least tolerates the more radical paradigmatic vision espoused by the ironically Vatican contested German Synodaler Weg.

  7. Fingers, toes, and even eyes crossed 🙂 that much good will come out of this conference. Of some concern in addition to the ‘alert-concern’ set forth by Fr. Morello in his comment about whether or not Pope Francis’ stated positions will or will not be honestly engaged is the fact that R. Fastiggi is a dedicated supporter/spin meister of Amoris Laetitia, and he is one of the organizers of this conference. We shall see.

  8. Joseph provided for Mary and Jesus: travel to Bethlehem, and shelter for the birth. But Joseph could not afford a horse, only a donkey. He could not get a room in the inn, only a cattle stall. Analogically, the conference must have been sheltered in a Pontifical University, not in a bourgeoise, lay structure. No Italian Catholic mind-molding media have yet covered it, except “La Nuova Bussola”. Joseph may have thought himself a failure as a provider, as many a man feels today if he cannot afford to give his family, the Catholic Church, the best of doctrine. But he has not failed; he can be the best. Alleluia!

  9. Thank you very much for this article on the conference, which concluded on December 10 in Rome. There is need, though, for a minor correction. Five of the conference participants, viz., Fr. Peter Ryan, S.J.; Dr. Eduardo Echeverria; Dr. Oana Gotia; Dr. Robert Fastiggi; and Dr. Janet E. Smith teach (or have taught) at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit not Sacred Heart University. Thank you for taking note of this correction.

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  2. The Solemnity Of The Immaculate Conception and the Connection To Fatima And The Purported Imposter 2nd Sister Lucia | Traditional Catholics Emerge
  3. ¿Revisará la Iglesia Católica su doctrina sobre la anticoncepción?

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