Italian Cardinal Baldassare Reina was created a cardinal by Pope Francis during the consistory at St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 7, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
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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Pope Francis waves to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square gathered for his weekly general audience on April 3, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Apr 3, 2024 / 09:05 am (CNA).
Pope Francis during his general audience on Wednesday deplored the recent killing of humanitarian workers in the Gaza Strip, with the Holy Father renewing his appeal for an immediate cease-fire amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
The pope buttressed his plea with a catechesis focused on the virtue of justice, noting that it is the building block for a well-ordered society premised upon the rule of law.
“I express deep regret for the volunteers killed while distributing food aid in Gaza,” the pope said to the 25,000 gathered in St. Peter’s Square on an overcast Wednesday morning.
Pope Francis greets a young girl in St. Peter’s Square during his general audience on April 3, 2024. Credit: Vatican Media
Seven volunteers from the nonprofit World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli strike on Monday while traveling in a “deconflicted zone” after delivering 100 tons of food aid to a town in central Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident “tragic,” suggesting that the Israel Defense Forces “unintentionally struck innocent people in the Gaza Strip.”
Pope Francis on Wednesday reiterated his regular call for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip so that the “exhausted and suffering civilian population be allowed access to humanitarian aid.” The civilian death toll continues to mount in the beleaguered zone with reportedly nearly 33,000 deaths.
The pope also turned his attention to the ongoing war in “tormented” Ukraine. At one point Francis set down the text of his address to hold up a rosary and a copy of the New Testament that belonged to a slain 23-year-old Ukranian soldier named Oleksandr.
“This 23-year-old boy died in Avdiïvka, in the war. He left a life ahead of him,” the pope said. “I would like to have a little silence at this moment, everyone, thinking of this boy and of many others like him who died in this madness of war. War always destroys! Let us think of them and pray.”
Pope Francis addresses pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square during his general audience on April 3, 2024. Credit: Vatican Media
Against the backdrop of these parallel conflicts, the pope framed his reflection on the virtue of justice, observing that it forms the basis of a well-ordered civil society that is built upon the rule of law — a principle of governance premised on the impartial application of legal norms for all citizens, institutions, and leaders.
“Without justice, there is no peace,” Pope Francis said. “Indeed, if justice is not respected, conflicts arise. Without justice, the law of the prevalence of the strong over the weak is entrenched.”
The pope stressed that justice is as a critical underpinning for the common good and the management of civil society, noting: “It is the virtue of law that seeks to regulate the relations between people equitably.”
“A world without laws,” without justice — and the corollary virtues of “benevolence, respect, gratitude, affability, and honesty” — would “be a world in which it is impossible to live,” the pope said.
“The righteous person reveres laws and respects them, knowing that they constitute a barrier protecting the defenseless from the tyranny of the powerful,” the pope expressed. “The righteous person does not think only of his own individual well-being but desires the good of society as a whole.”
The pope defined the characteristics of the “righteous person” in part as one who “desires an orderly society.”
A young girl embraces Pope Francis during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square on April 3, 2024. Credit: Vatican Media
“He desires an orderly society, where people give luster to the office they hold, and not the other way around. He abhors recommendations and does not trade favors. He loves responsibility and is exemplary in promoting legality,” the pope continued.
The pope stressed the importance of imparting the virtue of justice into young people so as to build a “culture of legality.”
“It is the way to prevent the cancer of corruption and to eliminate criminality, removing the ground from beneath it.”
Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney told a packed basilica of young jubilee pilgrims in Rome on Aug. 4, 2025, that holy relics are “not just a quirky Catholic thing — they are a quirky God thing.” / Credit: Ivanka Ranic/Archdiocese of Sydney
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.
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.