George Weigel, the biographer of St. John Paul II, laments that the Pontifical Academy of Life, despite the Catholic teaching on contraception, euthanasia and in vitro fertilization, betrays the ideals of its founders.
In a lecture entitled "Holy John Paul II and Jérôme Lejeune: 2 Lifes in the Service of Life", given as part of the global Bioethic Conference in Rome, Weigel states that respective decades of creative work to defend the sanctity of life is being undermined during the current pontificate.
"For decades the academy and the Institute of John Paul II have done creative, innovative work, developing Catholic moral theology and pastoral practice capable of gathering the challenge of 21st-century attacks on dignity and holiness of life – and they have done so in a way that called for various manifestations of the culture of death to convert," the theologian noted.
"But now, the academy has published a book with the ironic title "La Gioia della Vita" ("The Joy of Life"), authored by theologians who can be reasonably described as opposing the teaching of Evangelium Vitae," he stressed.
"This book not only weakens Catholic argument for the culture of life, which rejects serious crimes against life identified by Evangelium Vitae. This is done in terms of anti-biblical anti-metaphysical anthropology, which would be completely alien and even disgusting, both for Jérôme Lejeune and John Paul II," he alarmed.
In his presentation, Weigel besides alleged that "The Papal Academy of Life betrays its founder, Dr. Lejeune, by publishing and promoting specified an uninformed and poorly-argumented book". Identically revolutionized Institute of John Paul II, now mostly devoid of students, “contrasts the intentions of the holy and scholarly patron who called Catholic moral theology for a renewal that would not yield to the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the era.”
On 9 February, the Vatican publishing home published the book "La Gioia della Vita" ("The Joy of Life"), with the introduction of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy of Life, which caused controversy with his statements on euthanasia in April 2023. The text includes "reflections on the challenges of modern theological ethics" by Fr Carlo Casalone and Fr Maurizio Chiodi, among others. The Italian La Repubblica described the publication as “an crucial beginning to controversial topics specified as contraception, medically assisted procreation and assisted suicide”.
In January 2022, the Jesuit Fr Casalone, 1 of the co-authors of the book, a associate of the Pontifical Academy of Life and a prof. of moral theology at the Pontifical University of Gregorian Rome, argued that extending access to euthanasia in Italy was not contrary to the "common good". Over 60 pro-life organizations protested against further legalization of assisted suicide.
Another author of the book, Fr Chiodi, argued that the subject of contraception deserves a “theological debate in the Church, even with the anticipation of rejecting” the erstwhile teaching. A akin approach was set out in a erstwhile publication of the papal academy, "Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, Tradition, and applicable Challenges," the teaching of which was condemned in a letter opened by 9 moral theology experts.
Jérôme Lejeune (1926-1994) was a French doctor who discovered a condition liable for Down syndrome in 1958. The discovery was published in Nature magazine in 1959. Since then, Lejeune has devoted all his efforts to defend sick children from attempts to usage his discovery to justify the eugenic abortion. Despite his epic discovery, his Nobel Prize candidacy in medicine in 1970 failed. Lejeune was the founder of the Pontifical Academy of Life, and his work contributed to the establishment of the Pontifical Institute of John Paul II Studies on matrimony and Family. His beatification process is presently underway.
Source: catholicnewsagency.com
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