Biographer of John Paul II: Pontifical Academy for Life betrays Jérôme Lejeune

George Weigel, biographer of Saint John Paul II, regretted that the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) betrayed Jérôme Lejeune, its founding president, with a book that disagrees with the encyclical The Gospel of Life (The Gospel of Life) of the pilgrim Pope.

This was indicated by Weigel today, in his conference entitled Saint John Paul II and Jérôme Lejeune: Two lives at the service of lifedelivered within the framework of the II International Conference on Bioethics of Rome, held on May 17 and 18 in the eternal city.

“For decades, the Academy and the John Paul II Institute (for marriage and family) did creative and innovative work in developing a Catholic moral theology and pastoral practice capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century – assaults on dignity and the sanctity of life – and they did it in different ways in which they called for conversion to the culture of death,” highlighted the American academic.

“However, now the Academy has published a book with the ironic title of The Joy of lifefrom various theologians, which can only honestly be described as at odds with the authoritative teaching of the The Gospel of Life”the encyclical on life that Saint John Paul II published in 1994.

“That book not only weakens the Catholic case for a culture of life that rejects the serious crimes against life identified in the The Gospel of Lifebut does so in the terms of an anti-biblical and anti-metaphysical anthropology that would have been completely alien, even abhorrent, to Jérôme Lejeune and John Paul II.”

In his presentation, Weigel also indicated that “just as the Pontifical Academy of Life betrays its founding president, Dr. Lejeuneby publishing and promoting a misinformed and poorly argued book, also the reconstituted John Paul II Institute, now largely devoid of students, betrays the intention of the saint and scholar who founded it, and who called Catholic moral theology to a renewal not to give up Zeitgeistthe spirit of the times, but to convert it to right reason, to true compassion and to the noble exercise of freedom.

“And that is why we must hope that the deconstruction of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, a painful process that can be observed in the last decade, stops, and then is reversed in the coming years,” stressed the expert on the life of John Paul II.

The book The Joy of Life

On February 9, 2024, the Editrice Vaticana Bookstore published the book, whose prologue was written by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the PAV – who sparked controversy for his statements on euthanasia in April 2023. The text contains “reflections on the challenges of contemporary theological ethics” by authors such as priests Carlo Casalone and Maurizio Chiodi.

According to the Italian newspaper The Republic In a March note, the book, “without revolutionizing Catholic doctrine, nevertheless outlines important openings on controversial topics such as contraception, medically assisted procreation and assisted suicide.”

In January 2022, Father Casalone, a Jesuit priest, member of the PAV and professor of Moral Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, argued that the euthanasia bill in Italy was not contrary to the common good; a claim that had been rejected by 60 pro-life organizations.

In August of the same year, the PAV published an interview with another of its members, Father Maurizio Chiodi, who noted that Catholic teaching condemning contraceptives is open to “theological debate within the Church, even with the possibility of dissent.” ”.

Another controversial book from the Pontifical Academy for Life

In September 2022, nine international experts pointed out in an open letter the serious errors spread in the PAV book titled Theological ethics of life. Writing, Tradition, Practical Challenges, which promotes changing the teaching of the Catholic Church on the use of contraceptives.

“You cannot take good care of, spiritually advise, advise and accompany a marriage, applying a pastoral care that is outside of medical science,” the experts warned the PAV.

The debacle of the Institute created by John Paul II and Jérôme Lejeune

For some years now, a series of substantial modifications have been made, as well as the statutes of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for studies of marriage and family.

The changes, some of its former directors lamented in 2019, not only alienated the students, but are “a danger to maintaining the heritage” of the Polish saint.

Another consequence of the new statutes was “the drastic reduction of Moral Theology,” they lamented.

Who was Jérôme Lejeune?

Jérôme Lejeune (1926 – 1994) was the French doctor who discovered in 1958 trisomy of chromosome pair 21, responsible for Down syndrome.

The discovery was published in the journal Nature in 1959. Since then Lejeune dedicated all his efforts to defending these children against attempts to exploit his discovery to justify the abortion of children with this condition.

This position meant that his candidacy for the 1970 Nobel Prize in Medicine was unsuccessful, despite the significance of his discovery.

Jérôme Lejeune was the founder and first president of the Pontifical Academy for Life; and promoter of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for studies of marriage and family. He is now in the process of beatification.

In his presentation today, George Weigel explained that the truths of the defense of life, from conception to natural death, do not need the gift of faith to be understood and “are truths accessible not only to Catholics,” especially now with various threats to life in today’s culture.

“For this reason,” he stressed, “it is so important that the work of the Lejeune Foundation continue,” the institution that promotes the principles of the famous French geneticist.

To conclude, Weigel expressed his hope that “the heroic virtues of Jérôme Lejeune be officially recognized by the Church, so that he can join his friend, John Paul II, and be among those beatified and canonized.”