Vatican City, May 20, 2025 / 10:43 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV, in one of his first personnel appointments, on Monday named Cardinal Baldassare Reina grand chancellor of the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II for Marriage and the Family, replacing Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who turned 80 on April 20.
Reina, 54, is vicar general of the Diocese of Rome since 2024. As part of that role, he is also grand chancellor of the Pontifical Lateran University, the home of the John Paul II Institute.
Pope Leo’s May 19 appointment of Reina as grand chancellor appears to be a return to the former practice of linking the leadership of the institute to the vicar general of Rome. This practice had been changed under Pope Francis, who named Paglia to the role in 2016.
The following year, in 2017, Francis made the controversial decision to re-found the institute, originally established by Pope John Paul II in 1982 under the name the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, broadening its focus from moral theology to the social sciences. When new statutes were issued in 2019, the institute was also criticized for not renewing some of the contracts of longtime faculty and for other hiring decisions.
Paglia, who is president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told CNA on May 19 it was foreseen he would be replaced as chancellor of the John Paul II institute after turning 80, in accordance with Vatican guidelines. He said he does not know when he may be replaced as head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, but given his age, it is reasonable it may also be soon.
He declined to comment on the institute’s controversies under his leadership.
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Even at the age of 80, Paglia’s work is not yet done!
Now he may have time to whitewash over the homoerotic artistry of the mural still adorning his former cathedral for the Diocese of Terni-Narni-Amelia. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/leading-vatican-archbishop-featured-in-homoerotic-painting-he-commissioned
Said Paglia’s mural artist Cinalli: “The one thing that they didn’t permit me to insert [in the catch-all mural] was the copulation of two people within this net where everything is permitted.”
Interviewed by America Mag’s Vatican Correspondent Gerard O’Connell, Cdl Reina vowed to continue Francis’ legacy. O,Connell: “Some cardinals charge that Pope Francis created too much confusion, and say his papacy was marked by rupture, and now we need order again. They accuse him of having internally polarized the church. Do you feel this way, too?
Absolutely not. Pope Francis always described the scene of Pentecost. He would say the Holy Spirit came to shake things up. I absolutely do not see this confusion. Pope Francis was always in line with the [church’s] doctrine, with the magisterium, with the church’s tradition”.
Reina believes Francis’ created a great moment of needed change in the Church, awakening its moral conscience, for example the plight of migrants, drownings. There is truth in that. However, it remains to be seen as is often said. Although at first take this appointment appears a major mistake both for Leo XIV and for the Church.