Pontifical Academy for Life Archives

Pope names Academy for Life governing council

The Vatican announced August 5 the scholars who would comprise the governing council of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Last November, Francis issued new statutes for the pontifical academy to widen the scope of its activity and research on life issues.

No, Virginia, there’s no ‘secret commission’ on Humanae Vitae

Rumors of late, circulated by mostly conservative blogs, have suggested that Pope Francis and Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia have created a secret commission to reevaluate the teaching of ‘Humanae Vitae,’ Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical on birth control. As it turns out, establishing the truth of the matter is even easier than generating the conspiracy theory in the first place.

Head of Vatican’s Academy of Life: Dialogue is love, not compromise
- Interviews
- July 19, 2017
In an interview, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia explains the Vatican’s Academy for Life’s new strategy and vision and the important role non-Catholic members could play in promoting them. The archbishop wants the academy to aim to be missionary in outlook, seeking to tackle what he calls “the great frontiers of life” in collaboration with believers of other churches and faiths as well as non-believers.
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Doctors, courts not the enemy in the Charlie Gard case
- Commentary
- July 6, 2017
Austen Ivereigh worries some of the arguments about the tragic situation of baby Charlie Gard have framed the issue as a case of euthanasia, or an illicit case of state interference in parental autonomy. He says the purpose of not treating a person in these cases is not to kill them, but to let them die naturally, with a minimum of further suffering when that suffering is of no obvious medical benefit.
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Pope Francis backs parents in UK’s Charlie Gard drama
- Vatican
- July 2, 2017
From the beginning, the case of 10-month-old Charlie Gard in the UK, whose parents have been denied permission by a court to pursue experimental treatment for mitochondrial disease in the U.S. has stirred wide debate and alarm. Pope Francis waded directly into the discussion on Sunday, expressing hope that the parents’ desires to ‘care for their own child to the end’ will be respected.
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