Pope Francis has appointed Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as head of two ‘pro-life’ academic institutes within the Vatican as part his reorganisation of Vatican departments for family and ‘life’ issues.
Archbishop Paglia, 71, has been made President of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family. Both organisations are academic institutes which engage with so-called ‘life issues’. The Pontifical Academy for Life conducts research into bioethical issues like In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), stem cell research, euthanasia and abortion, while the Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family produces theological, philosophical and anthropological studies on the human person within the context of marriage and family.
Archbishop Paglia was previously President of the Pontifical Council for the Family. The Pontifical Council for the Family, the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and the Pontifical Council for Life were all rolled into one large office on Wednesday, with American Bishop Kevin Farrell at its head.
On Archbishop Paglia’s appointment, the Pope issued explicit instructions to the new head by publishing a “chirograph”: a medieval legal document used by the Vatican to issue papal decrees that only apply to the Curia.
In the document, the pope states that he wants the work of Vatican organisations for marriage, family and life issues to be “ever more clearly inscribed within the horizon of mercy”. Citing his recent apostolic exhortation on marriage and the family, Amoris Laetitia, he said that even “in theological study, a pastoral perspective and attention to the wounds of humanity should never be missing”.
Francis lists points of focus for the Archbishop in his new role, including “care for the dignity of the human person in different ages of existence”; “reciprocal respect between the sexes and among the generation”; “defence of the dignity of every human being”; “promotion of the quality of human life that integrates material and spiritual values”; and, most expansively, an “authentic human ecology” to help restore “the original balance of creation between the human person and the entire universe”.
He restated his famous statement that the Church should be a “field hospital”, reminding Archbishop Paglia that his role is as part of a Church which must be “capable of facing places of tension and conflict like a ‘field hospital,’ where it lives, announces and realises its mission of salvation and healing precisely in the lives of individuals most threatened by the new culture of competition and disposal”.
The Archbishop is to collaborate with the new office for laity, family and life, and with another new office – an office for charity, justice and peace, which will absorb a pre-existing office for healthcare.
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