He appointment This week by Pope Leo XIV of the Vicar General of Rome as the great chancellor of the Pontifical Institute Juan Pablo II for studies on marriage and family has been received as a partial restoration of the original order of the institute, almost a decade after Pope Francis altered this academic body in a controversial way.
In a brief statement on Monday, the Vatican announced that Pope Leo XIV had appointed Cardinal Baldassare Reina, 54, as the great chancellor of the Institute, replacing the archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who turned 80 years on April 20 and whose departure was expected for a long time.
Receive the main news of ACI Press by WhatsApp and Telegram
It is increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social networks. Subscribe to our free channels today:
The Cardinal Reina, who serves as Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome since 2024, is already a great chancellor of the Pontifical Universidad Latranense, headquarters of the Juan Pablo II Institute.
Until 2016, the great chancellor of the John Paul II Institute was traditionally the Vicar of Rome, thus maintaining a close institutional link with the Lateranense University from the foundation of the Institute by Pope San Juan Pablo II in 1982.
However, Pope Francis made an exception to this rule in 2016 by appointing Archbishop Paglia, who led deep and unpopular changes in the identity and mission of the institute.
The early appointment of Cardinal Reina in the Pontificate of Leo XIV indicates the Pope’s priority to correct these changes, although it is not yet clear to what extent the cardinal can restore the institute to its original form.
Although the return to the tradition of the Vicar of Rome as a great chancellor restores the old order, the new statutes stipulate that the Pope no longer names the president, and according to Fuentes, this will probably be maintained in the predictable future.
As a consequence, the Institute will continue without the special closeness to the Pope he enjoyed before Francisco’s pontificate, which guaranteed that he could present the doctrine of the Church about marriage and family according to ecclesial teaching.
As a great chancellor, Reina will play a central role in the management of the institute, supervising fidelity to the Catholic doctrine, proposing candidates for key positions and acting as a link with the Dicastery for Culture and Education. In summary, according to the statutes, it is the guarantor of the ecclesial direction of the Institute and promoter of the Communion and Academic Unit.
Created Cardinal just last December, Cardinal Reina He has shown support to the holiness of life, especially highlighting the provision of Chiara Corbella Petrilloa young Roman layman in the process of canonization. Also It is informed which resisted the LGBTQ agenda.
But it does not seem to have a special approach to doctrine and training, and it is not expected that it will revert many of the changes in the institute, at least in the short term, especially because many of the new teachers have a fixed place.
“Since Queen’s theological opinions are not public, we do not know if the Institute will return to its original and extremely important function as a promoter of John Paul II about the human person in the context of marriage and family,” said Professor Janet Smith, who taught moral theology in the Seminary of the Sacred Heart in Detroit (United States) and defended the Institute in 2019. However, he added that he hopes that he hopes that the change of leadership is “Much more than a simple correction of an irregular procedural issue” and sets “the beginning of a complete restoration of a reorient and poorly directed institute.”
That change of course became evident when, under the management of Archbishop Paglia, the Institute was recast in 2017 through the decree The highest family care of Pope Francis. The now renowned Pontifical theological Institute Juan Paul II for studies on marriage and family was oriented towards what Paglia and his allies described as a “new pastoral theology” that attended to the “concrete reality of situations.”
Emphasis on sociology and secular anthropology
This new approach, which relied on sociology and secular anthropology, sought develop moral teaching contained in Love happiness (The joy of love), the apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis of 2016 on the family’s synods, and make it irreversible.
But this approach was criticized for diluting doctrinal clarity and faithfulness to the teaching of the Church.
Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, founding president of the Institute, had serious reservations on Love happinesswhich considered incompatible with the teachings of John Paul II and the Magisterium of the Church. The Italian cardinal, signatories of the dubia who sought to clarify the document, died on September 6, 2017; A few days later, Pope Francis reconstituted the institute.
The Archbishop Paglia justified The changes emphasizing the desire to expand the scope of the Institute’s mission to include contemporary pastoral and social challenges. He argued that the reforms intended to go beyond addressing only specific ethical or legal conflicts and articulate a more comprehensive anthropology.
He presented this as an answer to the wishes of Pope Francis, who wanted the institute to “expand his field of reflection”, ensuring that he had “tools to critically examine the theory and practice of science and technology in his interaction with life, his meaning and value.”
The problems intensified when the new statutes entered into force in 2019, which resulted in the suspension of five master’s programs, together with the dismissal of respected titular professors, none of whom received prior notice or possibility of appealing the decision.
The new statutes also centralized decision -making, reducing the role of government and the academic freedom of the cloister, which was perceived as a decrease in the collegiate and academic character of the institute.
In response, students and alumni published an open letter in July 2019 expressing their “immense concern for the sudden publication of the new statutes and the new ordinance of studies of our institute”.
A few months later, more than 200 teachers, including outstanding Catholic academics such as Robert George, Scott Hahn, Janet Smith and Jane Adolphe, added their voices in another open letter expressing their “Great concern”For the dismissals and asking for the reinstatement of the leading professors of the Institute.
According to Professor Stanisław Grygiel, close friend of San Juan Pablo II and one of the dismissed, the changes were not a renewal, expansion or reform, but rather A dissolution and destruction of the institute.
Radical changes culminated a turn of emphasis far from the moral theology of John Paul II during Francisco’s pontificate, evidenced, for example, in the marginalization of the Teachers of the Institute in the Synod of the 2014 family and in the clear disdain by the encyclical of John Paul II on moral doctrine, Truth (The splendor of truth), in Francisco’s teaching.
“Progressive” academics
Jane Adolphe, a law professor at AVE Maria School of Law, told the National Catholic Register on May 21 that, as predicted at the time, the fired personnel were replaced by “progressive academics” with dissident positions about homosexuality and contraception.
The new teaching staff included Mons. Gilfredo Marengo and Fr. Maurizio Chiodi, who respectively expressed disposition to review the Human life and questioned the doctrine of the Church about homosexuality and artificial contraception, in direct opposition to the teaching of John Paul II on moral theology, oriented precisely to defend the teaching of the teaching of Human life.
The then leaders of the institute also adopted dissident positions, including the then president, Mons. Pierangelo Sequeriappointed by Mons. Paglia. Sequeri’s successor, Mons. Philippe Bordyne, was also criticized for advocating Liturgical blessings to same -sex couples under certain conditions. Archbishop Paglia himself was criticized for undermining the moral integrity of the institute with statements incompatible with the doctrine of the Churchespecially on marriage and life issues.
“Pope Leo XIV should be thanked to remove Archbishop Paglia,” said Adolphe, while Smith said that the exit of Archbishop Paglia was “definitely welcome,” since he defended pastoral changes in sexual issues, such as communion for those in irregular unions, “that they were not compatible with the teaching of the Church.”
Smith added that many expected that a “leadership change” in the institute “would be one of the first actions of Pope Leo XIV” and that the academic institution needed “being restored to its original vision, since the strengthening of the family is essential to reform this lost world.”
“Now everything depends on Cardinal Reina,” said a source close to the Institute to Register.
Some observers point out that the new great chancellor could change the president in approximately one year and that this crucial replacement could, little by little, work towards a reconfiguration of the institute. Adolphe would like to see the reinstatement of the dismissed teachers and an investigation into the changes and new hiring under the management of Archbishop Paglia.
However, a revolution is not expected in reverse – the sudden dismissal of those hired by Paglia and the reinstatement of the dismissed -, partly because it would be considered as unfair as the actions of 2019, and also because it would be seen as an excessive movement against its predecessor.
The arrival of Cardinal Reina could, however, lead to the most liberal teaching teachers moderating their public positions since the institute’s events align more with the Pope’s direction, without the need for direct intervention.
Observers consider that this will not mean significant changes in the short term, but probably sets the beginning of what was widely seen as a tumultuous and destructive period, contrary to the mission and ideals of the Institute founded by San Juan Paul II almost 43 years ago.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in the National Catholic Register.
Edward Pentin
Edward Pentin is a collaborator of the National Catholic Register and Vaticanist of Ewtn News. He began informing about the Pope and the Vatican on Radio Vaticana before becoming a correspondent in Rome for Ewtn. He has also informed about the Holy See and the Catholic Church for several other publications, including Newsweek, Newsmax, Zenit, The Catholic Herald and The Holy Land Review, a Franciscan publication specialized in the Church and the Middle East.