In an interview granted to Settimana News on May 21, 2026, Bishop Vincenzo Paglia claimed a decisive role in the dissolution of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and its replacement by a new academic entity, as well as in the radical transformation of the Pontifical Academy for Life. He also made clear that these interventions were intended to bring about a profound paradigm shift, which—for the first time—he explicitly acknowledged as affecting not only the pastoral sphere but the doctrinal one as well.
According to Paglia, this “very profound” reform entailed, above all, a rethinking of the very concept of natural law. Paglia accused the John Paul II Institute of advancing a conception of natural law understood as a set of immutable principles from which moral norms are deduced. He proposed, instead, that natural law must be grounded in an ongoing historical discernment of subjective and cultural experience. In this perspective, a “theology within history and within people’s lives” must replace what he characterized as the late Institute’s “armchair theology.”
We must ask ourselves whether Paglia’s criticism corresponds to the work carried out by the John Paul II Institute. Only then will we be in a position to evaluate the merits of Paglia’s new doctrinal proposals and understand the true reason for the abolition of the institute.
1. First, let us consider John Paul II’s original intent and the accomplishments of the Institute he founded on May 13, 1981, in the aftermath of the first Synod on the Family and on the eve of the publication of Familiaris Consortio.
A careful study of John Paul II’s correspondence with Paul VI, conducted in the archives of the Archdiocese of Krakow by Paweł Gałuszka, revealed Wojtyla’s significant influence on the preparation and reception of the encyclical Humanae Vitae. St. John Paul II believed that the issue of conjugal and family morality posed a decisive challenge to the Church. However, he also believed that the framework of moral theology in Catholic textbooks was inadequate to address this challenge. Neither the traditional natural-law and legalistic approach nor a personalism of conscience detached from nature did justice to the positive value of conjugal sexuality and the personalistic character of procreation.
Archbishop Wojtyła felt the need for an anthropology suited to the experience of love and for a theology of the body. What he had suggested to Paul VI, he was able to bring to fruition once he became Pope. Through his Catecheses on Human Love in the Divine Plan (1979–1984), he illustrated the greatness of the vocation to love, to the gift of oneself, to the communion of persons, and to collaboration with God in the generation of new life.
At the same time, the Polish pope realized that the resistance and objections to Paul VI’s encyclical were not just partial and occasional. They were leading to a comprehensive and systematic challenge to the Church’s “sound moral doctrine.” In the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, he pointed the way toward a personalist reinterpretation of natural law. In this text, John Paul II interpreted natural law through the concept of the gift of self that the Creator has inscribed in the human body, and that can be discovered through reason and virtue (cf. n. 48). Natural law arises from reason’s capacity to grasp “in the light of the dignity of the person” the specific moral value of certain goods toward which the person is naturally inclined. Thus, “the goods for the person,” that is, the object of our natural inclinations, become morally relevant in the perspective of “the good of the person” as such (ibid).
In the Apostolic Constitution Magnum Matrimonii Sacramentum, issued on October 7, 1982, by which he granted the Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family definitive legal status, the Polish pope explicitly cited Humanae Vitae. He identified “God’s plan for marriage and the family” as the object of study, emphasizing that the full truth of this plan must be sought through an interdisciplinary approach. This outlined two main lines of development for theological research: theological anthropology and moral theology.
Let us now examine how the Institute has developed these two strands over its 36 years of existence. We observe a comprehensive approach that, on the one hand, overcomes strong resistance from preconceived biases against the moral teaching of the Church, and, on the other hand, transcends the limitations of a neo-scholastic anthropology of the faculties centered on human action.
a) On the anthropological front, the Institute has offered a vision of the human person centered on the nuptial mystery. This vision highlights the dynamism that sexual difference introduces into human life by opening it to the possibility of a new love capable of generating life. The human person is understood precisely in terms of his or her constitutive relationality. The human person is not only born of love but also opens himself to new relationships in love, which enrich his being. Thus, the decisive stages of human flourishing can be outlined: being sons or daughters, becoming spouses, and ultimately becoming parents. Nature is thus seen within the dynamic of growth conformed by the gift of love, and not simply as a metaphysically predetermined development from which the rules of action could be deduced.
Within this framework, it is clear that the Institute has not focused solely—as Monsignor Paglia believes—on a narrow vision of the couple, neglecting to consider the family. On the contrary, it has been clear from the outset that the couple opens beyond itself, to all of creation and to society as a whole. The titles of some of the symposia and publications confirm this: “Toward a Culture of the Family,” “Family and the New Evangelization,” “Social Subjectivity of the Family,” “Anthropology of Generativity,” “A Covenant of Generations,” “Business, Family and Sustainable Development,” “The Family, God’s Light in a Society Where God is Absent,” “Family and Home: Building, Generating, Dwelling,” “The Mystery of Childhood,” “Sacramental Action and Family Life,” “Fatherhood”…
Moreover, the Institute’s method of work has always developed through engagement with the human sciences, particularly sociology and psychology (maintaining long-standing relationships with the Department of Family Studies at the University of Bologna and with the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan). In addition, seminars and conferences have been organized in dialogue with the major religious and wisdom traditions: with Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, the Zaytuna Islamic University in Tunis, and representatives of Buddhism and Hinduism.
b) In the realm of moral reflection, a systematic approach was developed since the establishment of the International Research Area in Moral Theology in 1997, centered on the encounter with Christ as the radical wellspring of the Christian moral experience. This was made possible by a clear vision of love as the foundational experience of morality—due to the transformation love brings about and the fullness it promises—thereby clarifying what happiness is. In this light, it became possible to understand how the formation of the moral subject takes place, not as an extrinsic imposition of an ideal, but as the fruit of a love that reorders life and gives meaning to freedom. Love, in fact, generates the virtues as excellences of the person that enable him to act with excellence together with others. Charity, as friendship with God and with others in the Church, thus manifests its great and definitive contribution: the formation of the Christian subject.
For more than 22 years, the Research Area in Moral Theology had set itself the goal—at the suggestion of then-Cardinal Ratzinger—of engaging in dialogue with moral theologians of various tendencies, including those opposed to the approach developed at the Institute, and of drawing upon all the valuable insights found in their research. Here, just to give a taste, are several names of those invited to engage in dialogue: W. Pannenberg, S. Pinckaers, R. Tremblay, B. Petrà, E. Schockenhoff, G. Angelini, P. Wadell, E. Falque, G. Abbà, E. Feder Kitay, A. Rodríguez Luño, F. Botturi, L. F. Ladaria, K. Flannery, B. Kiely, S. Hauerwas, Ph. Bordeyne, A. Ales Bello, P. Gilbert, M. Chiodi, S. P. Bonanni, J. Mimeault, M. Sherwin, M. S. Archer, P. Donati, E. Scabini, J. Milbank, T. Rowland. But also, at other moments in the life of the Institute, A.M. Pelletier, X. Lacroix, J.L. Marion, S. Ubbiali, C. Pagazzi, P. Gisel.
This dialogue has enriched us professors and our students. A glance at the titles of some of the conferences organized also reveals the breadth of the vision: “The Question Regarding the Good, and the Question Regarding God”; “What Is the Foundation for Action? Ecclesiological Dimensions of Morality”; “The Path of Life: Education, a Challenge for Morality”; “Action, A Source of Novelty”; “The Intelligence of Love: A New Moral Epistemology Beyond the Dialectic Between Norm and Case”; “Walking in the Light: Perspectives on Moral Theology Beginning with Veritatis Splendor”; “The Sequela Christi: Moral and Spiritual Dimensions of the Christian Experience”; “The Logos of Agape: Love and Reason as Principles of Action”; “Love as the Principle of Social Life”; “The Revelation of Love and the Response of Freedom”; “The Family: Key to the Church-World Dialogue”; “Rebuilding the Christian Moral Subject”; “The Moral Subjectivity of the Body.” But also, in a clear pastoral key: “Loving Human Love”; “The Family, a Resource for Society”; “Oil on the Wounds: A Response to the Scourges of Abortion and Divorce”; “Mercy As Pastoral Truth.”
These two strands (anthropological and moral) found a decisive point of convergence in the sacramental perspective developed at the Institute. The sacraments conform the ultimate meaning of human life and of all reality: to be a gift that, when we receive it, enables us to be the gift of self. Human action finds in the sacraments that source which comes from God and incorporates the dynamism of our moral action into the action of Christ, so that we may share in his virtues.
Within this sacramental dynamism, marriage has been understood at the Institute as a strategic sacrament. Being the original setting for the language of the body as an expression of self-giving, marriage proves to be a key to understanding the nature of all the sacraments through its connection to the Eucharistic gift of Christ’s body. From this perspective, concrete proposals were developed to help married couples live out their vocation to holiness, as well as pastoral programs of accompaniment aimed at leading those who are not yet able to live according to Jesus’ teaching on marriage and the family back to the truth of love.
The fruit of this research and teaching was, in fact, the most surprising aspect: the students emerged with a new light, a desire to share it, and an awareness of how to accompany families. Upon returning to their home countries, they became beacons of light, demonstrating great pastoral creativity, and continuing to nurture the friendships they had forged with professors and colleagues. The twelve sections of the Institute that have developed across the five continents are evidence of the pastoral fruitfulness and the potential universality of this vision and this method of working.
In light of all this, it is truly difficult to understand the criticism that Paglia directs at the work of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute. Neither what has just been said regarding the Institute’s two main pillars (anthropological and moral), nor the courses, nor the doctoral research, nor the articles in the journal Anthropotes, nor the published books reflect an “armchair theology,” a narrow apologetic approach centered on an ahistorical nature and moral absolutes, conceived as an abstract ethical deduction and incapable of interpreting people’s lived experiences. On the contrary, what has emerged has been precisely a theology of love, seeking to shed light through reason on this experience of love, fundamental to people’s lives, and to support them on their journey. Paglia’s criticism therefore appears ideological and superficial, since it does not address the substance of the scientific work carried out at the Institute and goes so far as to equate it with the neoscholastic approach for the sole purpose of challenging the Church’s moral teaching.
2. We thus return to the radical paradigm shift advocated by Bishop Paglia, which is made explicit above all in the volume he edited, published by the Pontifical Academy for Life under the title Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, Tradition, Practical Challenges (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2022), to which he himself refers. It also includes a so-called “basic document,” which was intended to revise the teaching of the encyclical Humanae vitae, but was never actually published as a papal text. It has already been the subject of thorough criticism in a volume edited by R. Fastiggi and M. Levering: Humanae vitae and Catholic Sexual Morality. A response to the Pontifical Academy for Life’s Etica Teologica della vita (Sapientia Press, Ave Maria, FL 2024).
The two theoretical cornerstones of Paglia’s document are the primacy of hermeneutics and the consequent primacy of subjective conscience. The first assertion establishes the so-called “principle of immanence” characteristic of modernism: the complete historicity of the interpreting subject, whereby the subject is always in a perspectival position, conditioned by his or her existential and cultural situation, and can never have immediate and direct contact with reality. “There are no facts, only interpretations,” Nietzsche said. In theology, this means that its desired pastoral conversion would require constantly contextualizing every statement, so as to reshape and rethink doctrine to adapt it to today’s mindset. Thus, for example, the new situation experienced by remarried divorcees or cohabiting couples becomes an opportunity to reshape the doctrine on adultery, on sexuality outside of marriage, and on the conditions for receiving the sacraments.
The second assertion simplistically identifies the moral subject with his conscience, reducing to it every prior given that might serve as an objective criterion of truth: a veritable hypertrophy of conscience, which is no longer merely a reflective judgment on the morality of an act, but absorbs the moral norm into itself. Thus, while embracing the old framework of post-Tridentine manuals—which pitted law against conscience in a systemic dialectic—one seeks to resolve this conflict by abolishing the objective reference point. Since “only the conscience of the moral agent can formulate the concrete norm for action,” it takes on the form of a subjective, autonomous, and unappealable “decision.” This amounts to a denial of moral absolutes, namely, the possibility of defining negative moral norms that are valid without exception, because they refer to actions that are intrinsically evil due to their moral object.
The historical dimension of the human being—who always lives within a particular culture—must not, however, deny that there exists within man something that transcends cultures. St. John Paul II, in Veritatis splendor, reminds us that this something is precisely human nature, which is therefore the measure of culture (no. 53). This affirmation of human nature is not merely something that belongs to human reason, safeguarding it from a relativism that would leave the door open to violations of the rights of the person and of peoples, as the history of 20th-century totalitarianism has tragically demonstrated. It also pertains to the doctrine of the faith, because the question of human nature calls into play the ultimate Christological foundation and the very truth of redemption. Indeed, the encyclical Veritatis splendor, citing the Second Vatican Council’s constitution Gaudium et spes, teaches: “The Church affirms that beneath all changes there are many things that do not change and are ultimately founded upon Christ, who is the same yesterday and today and forever. Christ is the Beginning who, having taken on human nature, definitively illuminates it in its constitutive elements and in its dynamism of charity toward God and neighbor (no. 53).”
3. The exposition of the achievements of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute and of the new paradigm proposed by Paglia brings into focus the ultimate reason for the Institute’s suppression. Paglia’s actions were not motivated by theological reasons but by an ideological critique of the Institute. Yet ideology, as Karl Marx famously argued, serves to mask interests that dare not speak their name. What, then, was the unspoken motive behind the dismantling of a flourishing institution founded by a holy and prophetic Pope?
One might answer: the difficulty of accepting the message on marriage and the family that the Church has proposed thus far, which Paglia considered unreasonable and impractical. From this perspective, his intervention has in fact prevented the further development of a proposal capable of remaining faithful to the Church’s traditional teaching while at the same time presenting it in terms understandable to contemporary man—a proposal endowed with pastoral fruitfulness that would truly enable people to live it out.
One need only consider the other key concept that characterizes Paglia’s paradigm shift: the concept of the “possible good,” which becomes the criterion for establishing the morally binding norm. The entirely traditional principle that “ad impossibilia nemo tenetur” is applied even in the case of negative moral precepts, which prohibit intrinsically evil actions. This runs counter to the constant tradition of the Church, as expressed by the Council of Trent on the basis of a text by St. Augustine: “No one should adopt that reckless expression—condemned by the Fathers with excommunication—according to which it is impossible for a justified person to observe God’s commandments. For God does not command what is impossible, but in commanding, He exhorts you to do all you can, to ask for what you cannot do, and helps you so that you may be able to do it; for “God’s commandments are not burdensome” (cf. 1 Jn 5:3) and “His yoke is easy and His burden is light” (cf. Mt 11:30).”
This is the teaching of Saint John Paul II in Veritatis splendor, nos. 102–103, which warns against such oversimplifications. He reminds us that the reality of redemption is at stake here, because “only in the mystery of Christ’s Redemption do we discover the ‘concrete’ possibilities of man.” Consequently, “would be a very serious error to conclude… that the Church’s teaching is essentially only an ‘ideal’ which must then be adapted, proportioned, graduated to the so-called concrete possibilities of man, according to a ‘balancing of the goods in question’.”
The Pontifical John Paul II Institute—the original one that was dissolved—had demonstrated precisely the reasonableness of the Christian message, in that it corresponds to authentic human desire. It had also demonstrated the practicality of this message through the sacraments and ecclesial accompaniment. Such an accompaniment, in the concreteness of its various community forms, becomes the womb where the moral subject is rebuilt and reinvigorated thanks to the transformation of his desires through the practices proposed to him. This path—the narrow path of the regeneration of the person through a patient healing and educational process within a community—is the path that Paglia’s intervention sought to close.
This intervention, however, has extended beyond the Institute’s classrooms and publications. It has touched the Church itself, which today finds itself at a crucial crossroads. On the one hand, it can continue to proclaim the Gospel of the greatness of the human vocation, explaining who the human person is, what his highest calling is, what marriage and the family are, and what paths lead to living out this vocation to love. In other words, it can invite people to turn their gaze first and foremost to Christ and to God’s original plan. On the other hand, it can renounce this perspective of the narrow path, closing its eyes to the greatness of this call and reducing it to the actual possibilities of wounded humanity living in today’s context.
What kind of moral vision does the Church want? Does she want a watered-down morality, a sort of “minimalist Pelagianism,” which, by not relying on divine grace, ends up abandoning the call to the fullness of Christian life and resigns herself to human weaknesses and frailties as though they were impossible to overcome? Or a morality that offers a path for those who humbly ask for the grace necessary to live up to the vocation of self-giving and seek an ecclesial context in which to live it out? Put another way, what hope does the Church wish to offer to the wounded person in search of meaning? The hope of those who are content with their own situation, or the hope of those who know they are called to a great destiny and have before them a path made up of small but significant steps?
In reality, as we have seen, Paglia’s paradigm is by no means new; rather, it is an outdated paradigm—not only because it revives the post-Tridentine casuistic dialectic between law and conscience, but also because, at its core, it denies the enduring newness of Christ, who did not come to abolish the law but to give us the ability to fulfill it and thus bring to fruition God’s great plan of love. To be merciful, the Church does not need to water down the fullness of life she proposes and adapt to the world’s standards, but rather to proclaim the good news of grace—which enables us to live up to our divine vocation despite our frailties and weaknesses.
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Part way through his excellent critique, Msgr. Melina summarizes: “In light of all this, it is truly difficult to understand the criticism that Paglia directs at the work of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute.”
As a non-theologian, but as a layman who has tracked things closely since even before the Council, it is perhaps very easy to understand Paglia in a “family” sense…The man is child of the clown masses of the late 1960s and is simply doing another imitation—we do not judge the man!—of a lunatic spreading feces on his cell wall, in this case a huge homoerotic mural on his cathedral wall.
His “confession” will be complete when he publicly removes his mural and makes public restitution for the damage he has inflicted on the Church. As a condition for absolution, such would be expected of any layman who had done the same.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/leading-vatican-archbishop-featured-in-homoerotic-painting-he-commissioned (This site has been updated partly to remove the earlier full-body depiction of excited males gathered into a fishing net, one wearing a red hat.)
Said the artist Cinalli: “The one thing that they didn’t permit me to insert was the [normal] copulation of two people within this net where everything is permitted.” Inadmissible, and a harbinger of Paglia’s destruction of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.
“it is truly difficult to understand the criticism that Paglia directs at the work of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute.”
Perhaps he objected to it’s existence or mission, and needs to destroy or transmogrify it.
“… Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the Pope Francis sycophant who presided over the demolition of the original John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and the cashiering of many senior faculty. Francis’s apparent goal was to align the institute’s work with his larger deconstruction of theology into “pastoral theology,” more preoccupied with “accompanying” the twists of the Zeitgeist than with clear theoretical foundations, rooted in unchanging human nature, to guide people’s moral choices. ”
John Grondelski, First Things May 20, 2025
“In light of all this, it is truly difficult to understand the criticism that Paglia directs at the work of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute. “
In Light of God’s Divine Law, it becomes clear what the purpose of Paglia’s paradigm Is, to deny Divine Law and thus The Divinity of The Most Holy Blessed Trinity, which is a Masonic paradigm at its core, and anathema according to The Word of God Incarnate.
This brazen mural is proof that Francis chose the perfect person in Paglia to promote Amoralist Laetitia. Only a bold Bishop would commission art in his Cathedral that represented himself and his proud friends being saved by their hairdresser in a “net where everything is permitted”.
To be fair, if the Bishop denied that he knew the hairdresser, who would doubt him?
The “net” will not break if it is secured to The Word Of God Incarnate, Our Savior, Jesus The Christ.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2021&version=DRA
Only an apostate, who denies Divine Law and thus the divinity of The Most Holy Blessed Trinity, would desire to be caught up in a net where sin is permitted, accommodated, and celebrated.
A profound, in depth theological account of the confessed radical turn away from Apostolic tradition, and John Paul II’s immense theological contribution to sanctity of the family by a virtual denizen from the underworld Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia.
For the many of us in search of intelligent faithful voices, we have found one in essayist theologian Msgr Livio Melina. Why would Paglia confirm what everyone knows? Is Paglia’s confessional interview also an appeal for absolution? Or is it Chutzpah?
It’s Chutzpah.
Neither. It’s Pride, like the Movement in June.
Who can doubt that Archbishop Paglia is a Häringtic?
Pope Francis promoted AB Paglia to destroy the teachings of his predecessors in practice.
So too did Pope Francis promote Curial Cardinals to destroy the teachings of his predecessors in practice. Witness men like Fernández💋, Ferrel🤫, Tagale🎼, Roche⛸️, Czerny☮️, ad nauseam. And lest we forget, Pope Francis never came clean on McCarrick, used the papal platform to promote Rupnik, Martin, Bonino, et al.
God will raise up another Pope like St. John Paul the Great to clean up the mess of Francis.
While it’s good that this is being printed in an american outlet, after essentially a complete blackout by american catholic outlets, it is also highly misleading in one respect: Paglia makes it clear this agenda was at Francis’ instigation; yet the article goes out of the way to claim this was Paglia’s agenda and views. The latter doesn’t make much sense either, as it was Francis who precisely appointed Paglia, while a lot of the actions were not done by Paglia and were outside of his perview- Paglia provides a much broader view of the agenda than is said here, as Francis wanted to tinker with the teachings on contraception, homosexuality, etc, and use synods, other vatican offices, to implement it. It’s not surprising people would want to avoid this, as for one, it raises possible questions of an invalid pope- how could God possibly allow a pope who actively worked to undermine the faith; that’s a first in history. (And we thus need to stop thinking of that as some crazy conspiracy theory, as though it’s perfectly explainable how this would be.) It also implicates Leo, who was part of the machinery of this agenda for a time- Paglia mentions appointment of like-minded bishops as one part of it- while his papal validity would then be in question. Most importantly, there’s the fact that Leo has done nothing to reverse this- none of what Paglia describes has been the subject of change by Leo; in fact, Leo just recently confirmed and even added more problematic items to the statutes of the academy for life, which Paglia also headed. And one can’t claim Leo doesn’t know about such things, precisely with such confessions now coming out.
I agree 100%.
The Pontiff Francis and the Pontiff Leo simply function as facades to confect the veneer of faithfulness, while their episcopal agents like “His-Sodomic-Eminence Paglia” carry out their “paradigm shift” to [as Pontiff Leo has declared] “change people’s attitudes [about the commands of Jesus and his apostles regarding sexual morality], and decapitate The Body of Christ.
While all the time proclaiming it’s the work of the Holy Spirit, the “god of surprises.”
“Paglia accused the John Paul II Institute of advancing a conception of natural law understood as a set of immutable principles from which moral norms are deduced. He proposed, instead, that natural law must be grounded in an ongoing historical discernment of subjective and cultural experience.”
So Paglia believes God abandoned His creatures to a capricious understanding of how we ought to order our lives together and all the tragedy that results.
Paglia believes God is an idiot, which means he does not believe in God. Perhaps he believes in the idiocy of his fantasy God in order to avoid coming to terms with the fact that he is the idiot.
My gratitude to the editors of Catholic World Report for publishing this magnificent essay, and to Msgr. Livio Melina, who had the patience and grace to be my thesis advisor in bioethics at the John Paul II Institute back in 2006. Reading this text is both an intellectual joy and a deeply personal grace.
What strikes me most in this article is not merely the analysis of recent institutional changes, but the deeper question it raises: What kind of hope does the Church wish to offer to wounded men and women today?
Msgr. Melina reminds us that the Christian moral life is not founded upon a reduction of the ideal to what appears immediately possible, but upon the transformative power of grace. The greatness of the human vocation cannot be measured by our present weaknesses alone, because the Gospel always speaks of what God can accomplish in us.
For that reason, the debate surrounding the John Paul II Institute was never simply academic. At stake was a vision of the human person, of freedom, of conscience, and ultimately of redemption itself. If human nature becomes merely the product of historical interpretation, moral theology risks losing its anchor in reality. If, however, human nature is illuminated by Christ, then moral theology becomes the proclamation of a path toward flourishing, healing, and holiness.
For many of us who studied under Msgr. Melina, the original mission of the Institute was precisely this: to show that truth and mercy are not rivals, but inseparable dimensions of the same divine love.
On a personal note, the years my wife and I spent at the Institute under Monsignor Melina’s leadership remain among the most precious memories of our lives, and we recall them with deep gratitude and nostalgia. Spiritually, intellectually, and ecclesially, those years were an immeasurable gift.
Today, I simply entrust my life to the Lord, trusting in His mercy and giving thanks for a heritage far greater than anything I could ever have deserved. We lift our hearts in gratitude also to Our Lady of Fatima, the heavenly protectress of the Institute, and to Saint Joseph, who in the final apparition at Fatima held the Child Jesus to bless humanity and the family.
Deo gratias. Thank you, Monsignor, and thank You, Lord.
After reading these (four) comments, I’ll have to give this article another go. Thanks, folks.
Thank you, Monsignor Livio Melina, for an excellent article. St. Pope John Paul II was instrumental in my conversion. When he spoke, as I read his writings I felt the Light of Christ shine more brightly in my life. He clarified, he enlightened, and he pointed to a better way. The Church was made weaker as Francis oversaw the destruction of what JPII had gifted the world.
When I read of Paglia my initial reaction is seeing in my mind’s eye Jesus entering into the temple and beating the money changers – those who chose to soil the House of the Lord. I keep expecting and wanting a pope to undo what Francis has done. To return to holiness, truth, and clarity. When Satan enters the door baldly, in the light of day, I am not interested in seeing the Church entertain him – I expect to see him turned out promptly, without second thoughts. I keep waiting.
Paglia is in effect telling us that there is no distinction between the end of the agent and the end of the act. Frankly, anyone with two functioning brain cells knows that just isn’t true.
Paglia is proposing an historicist modernism that has been condemned by every pope since Pius X. He is a heretic, pure and simple.
The 2 men in the photograph are brazen falsifiers, of polluted minds, who in turn pollute everything they touch. Their lives serve one aim: to decapitate The Body of Christ.
“To be merciful, the Church does not need to water down the fullness of life she proposes and adapt to the world’s standards”.
Truth in Charity is surely the Catholic way… But the aggiornamento to which you allude was unleashed by the V2 council and continues adapting Catholicism to the contemporary world. It will not stop until the wolves running the Vatican apparatus have been replaced with Catholics?
That seems to be further away as ever, as the wolves prepare to excommunicate the last of the Catholics, yet again. As if punishing those who hold true to the apostolic faith of their fathers will make aggiornamento more Catholic…
Homosexuality is epidemic among clergy of all ranks.
As is contraceptive use among the (child-bearing years) laity in the pews.
,
I am willing to bet if you asked the average Mass-going lay Catholic if s/he could have either 1) a world with only non-homosexual, chaste clergy but also no access to contraception
.
or
.
2) a world with abundant homosexual (possibly active) clergy but also easy access to contraception, said Catholic would choose option #2.
Well we are quickly headed towards no contraception with or without the agreement of the voters. Yet no deal has been struck regarding clergy.
Those who use NFP/fertility awareness don’t need to worry about “shortages.” Just sayin’
Contraception by another name smells as rotten.
If you want to explain how abstaining from sex (which is what NFP boils down to when “used to avoid” pregnancy) is contraceptive, sure…
Mr Gerard, NFP by its very nature can not be contraception.
Sins of the flesh afflict every sort of faith community. Those sins may look a little different per denomination or what sort of clergy. Our own clergy seems to have had more trouble with SSA.
The Roman Catholic priesthood is a good place to “hide,” however, since priests are expected to be unmarried and seminaries are highly male-dominated places.
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I don’t know if the Eastern Churches, which allow for the ordinations of married men, has quite the same problem. I don’t know if anyone has done a study on that.
Every church that has human clergy has had these sorts of troubles.
We’ve visited an Eastern Rite parish where our friends attend. A pastor there was caught with a ( female) prostitute.
Protestant ministers, rabbis, etc are broken human beings, too.
As you say, all male environments create opportunities for certain sins and sinners.
Glad to have taken time to look up, on Arch Bishop Paglia, now 80 yrs old who became a Bishop in 2000, Arch Bishop in 2012,is a cofounder of the internationally active Sant’Egidio communities doing much in taking care of the ‘poor’- in its various manifestations .
The positions held by him in Rome, the esteem at one level from persons who care for the wounded -Pope Francis and others thus understandable .
The issue in the article about ‘natural law’, its relation to the current Church directives in marital chastity – an area in which very many couples fail , thus an important one . Not being familiar with the work of the institute or of Bishop Paglia unsure if there has been concrete directives that help that is not being recognized yet by others.
‘Love God with His own Love ‘ – Pope Francis quoting the truth conveyed to the ‘Little daughter ‘ Luisa of Divine Will .Fr.Robert Young – just heard him today narrating how it is coming to hear that truth – loving God with His own Love – that helped him to come to appreciate the Divine Will lessons , its sanctity meant for our times .- https://divinewilllife.org/series/an-introduction-to-the-divine-will/
Many of our Father figures of recent times who gets misunderstood also very likely trying to convey similar truths, knowing well that without such truths , knowing only natural law can make living a holy life much more out of reach for many whereas knowing same – thus being in the exchange of Love – such as through ‘Rounds’ in Divine Will, it can be within reach of very many to bring its holiness and peace .
Peace !
How do admirers of Luisa Piccarreta’s Divine Will mysticism accept the Vatican approval of same through the authority of Victor Fernandez? Apparently the ambiguities of doctrine in her writing were studied for some 20+ years.
That’s telling. I wondered how her quoted statements could possibly be reconciled with the revelation of Christ?
Adrienne von Speyr who influenced von Balthasar is another. Aquinas noted that this form of private prophecy is frequently from the heart of the prophet rather than God. Our sainted Padre Pio said some similar questionable words in his The Agony of Jesus.
Listening to a few ( not that many yet) talks on Divine Will given by Fr.Young , he mentions how it is best not to have to argue with those who are more on the skeptical / disinterested side since he too had gone through same, that God has ways of touching hearts beyond our cherished ways .The dangers imagined about the ‘paradigm shift’ with related fears / scorn about those whom God has placed in authority to guide The Church – His mercy as invoked to bring its grace as light & help in His time ! Peace !
Thank you, JPG. It is interesting that Fr. Young thinks dangers about paradigm shift are imagined. It is also interesting that Fr. Young thinks it best not to dialogue with skeptics. As Fr. Morello says above…All this is very telling.
So as a catholic am I know expected to believe this paradigm change and ignore what was previously believed? Sounds Protestant to me. No wonder the SSPX are suspicious of signing anything coming out of Rome, you don’t know what your signing up to.
The SSPX are the Protestants.
According to the OED protestant is a member or follower of any of the Western Christian Churches that are separate from the Roman Catholic Church in accordance with the principles of the Reformation, including the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran Churches.
The SSPX defends Roman Catholic teaching and is opposed to the reformation from the 16th century and its revival during the 1960s…
To Call the SSPX Protestant is a contradiction in terms and at the very least a mis-use of English language.
The SSPX rejects Papal authority. That is , by definition, Protestant.
The SSPX does not reject papal authority. The SSPX defers to Canon Law’s previsions during times of exception.
And rejecting Papal authority does not make one a Protestant. Muslims reject papal authority. No one calls them Protestants and for good reason: they are not. OED.
On the contrary, they are soliciting his authority and he is withholding it.
They have a problem with an aging episcopacy and organizationally have a “mass superannuation” risk, something I’m sure Francis 1.0 knew, and Francis 2.0 knows.
Leo is neither providing new Bishops, or affirming their nominations, the way that he will when the Chinese government effectively co-consecrates Bishops.
The cruelest wars are wars of attrition. This reeks of an application of the Francine doctrine “time is greater than space’.
Leo had time to bless ice and treat Popess Sarah (amusing now that King Alfred E. Neuman has declared himself defenders of the FAITHS-watch how fast all faiths are equal, but some are more equal than others) as authentically worthy of his time and good cheer, despite being the cartoonish apotheosis of five centuries of ossified defiance-with Anglicanism now reduced to a vessel for popular prejudices with a veneer of spirituality. His choice of meetings, especially to the extent they raise the specter of scandal, are not an exercise of the Petrine authority above question.
It’s amusing how statists and leftists always seem to exhibit the worst Protestant stereotypes of Papal sycophancy and papalotry since 2013.
“A pope’s magisterium is only valuable and edifying to the extent that it conforms to and confirms the Faith of the Church.”
“Papalotry” is real
Roraete Caeli Blog April 17. 2017
As indicated in the response to meiron above, as one still trying to know more about the ‘Era of Sanctification’, the essential role of obedience to The Church -as the heroic virtue of Luisa, how God comes to help when we choose to want our human will to be for the Divine Will to reign – another little booklet to get more insights –
https://queenofthedivinewill.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Little-Catechism-of-the-Divine-Will-1.pdf
God bless !
An obnoxious little man that for the past 14 years has done untoll damage to the Mystical Body of Christ! His infamous cathedral mural teaches on thing that the body of an old man is never flattering and to think otherwise is beyond the realms of reality!
More from LM, please. Lord, bless him and his readers.
Re Jamie Hickman above (7:28 p.m.)
I’ll second that.
How did this man ever rise to his position in the Catholic Church?
He is clearly not a catholic in his beliefs.
Precisely the reason he rose to his position. . . CHARLES MURR in his book “Murder in the 33rd Degree” explains that freemasons were in charge of selecting bishops through the 60s to the 90s…
Catholics are no longer in control of their Church apparatus.
So, morality is whatever one wants it to be either for the individual or for “groups, community, etc” without any foundational principles of truth (that which God provides) or right. That is what we have in our culture today, that is why our culture is dysfunctional and detrimental to one seeking holiness and ultimately heaven. What has happened to our Church, too many now see through the eyes of the devil and not that of God.
There are two presumptions at work and layered fallacies.
One presumption is that doctrine can get in the way of a needed charity.
The other is that the charity that is so needed can be an authentic charity irrespective of doctrine.
The fallacies are the two presumptions do not actually “uphold each other” and “therefore development is forthcoming” so “they must be kept in suspended separations”, like,
– time is greater than space
– the whole is greater than the part
– reality is more important than ideas
– unity prevails over conflict.
Thus, the chair got split into two chairs to appear and then to make to do or get done.
The fact is that Christian love is the foundational doctrine through which it imparts all truth, including truth in doctrine, in charity. And including doctrine in truth. Not having to elucidate the doctrine at every single moment is merely an economy. Yes people do get it wrong both in the hierarchy and among laity; THIS is the challenge in the faith and it is not reducible. It is to be recognized where the Spirit led Augustine -among whom- with the conversion he received.
People can and do make a mess of bringing goodness along and bringing it up and it often has to be embraced via suffering.
To start with Pope Francis and his following did not understand Pelagianism and they then adapted the amassed errors into some sort of move going against Jansenism while then inserting Pascal’s Jansenist style as admissible and workable. The rationalist wager is not comparable to the “reasoning forms” offered by Jesus.
Both justified and unjustified man would depend on grace. It is open to both justified and unjustified to both SEE and keep Commandments.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-leo-defends-synodality-tells-cardinals-i-need-your-support-strong-explicit-and-public/
Thank you, profusely, Author Msgr. L. Melina, for your personal revelation of your innate physical struggles with dyslexia; you are an inspiration!!💜And your pursuit of prayer, and the sacred doctrine is exemplary! Much eternal gratitude for this, your exposition of Truth and the Faith, with which I concur.
In my 9th grade home school studies, I implemented JPII Vatican “Love and Life” formative sexuality expert Colleen Kelly Mast’s student-centered curriculum (Ignatius). It promoted practical, reasonable chastity- a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
The example of self-donative love I introduced within Natural Family Planning Creighton Model to my 4 children in due time. Its fruit they witnessed in my faithfulness and in their baby sister’s miraculously healthy birth!
Catholic parenting experts, Dr. and Mrs. Lisa Popcak, were instrumental in planning my Catholicism in an overall family approach. He offered problem-solving techniques and counseling.
Mrs. Cracker, thank you for your supportive comments you wrote to me after my glowing NFP post a while ago🥰herein a CWR article.
Daily, Tradition takes hits from deceivers/modernists. This CWR publication is my respite for theology’s defenses- with streamers’ humor and solace. Onward, Marian Christian soldiers. Gratefully I proceed🎶