Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 18, 2022 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
One of the newest members of the Pontifical Academy for Life appointed by Pope Francis is an outspoken advocate of abortion rights, having recently shared her opposition to the overturning of Roe v. Wade on Twitter.
Italian-American economist Mariana Mazzucato, known for her work promoting the public sector’s role in encouraging innovation, was among seven academics appointed by the pope on Oct. 15 to serve five-year terms with the academy.
In his 2020 book “Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future,” Pope Francis described Mazzucato’s work as “thinking that is not ideological, which moves beyond the polarization of free market capitalism and state socialism, and which has at its heart a concern that all of humanity have access to land, lodging, and labor.”
The website Catholic Culture published on Tuesday links to recent social media posts shared by Mazzucato in which she tweeted and retweeted pro-abortion statements concerning the Supreme Court’s decision to return abortion law to the states.
In response to a Twitter post that featured commentary deploring the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Mazzucato tweeted, “So good!”
So good! https://t.co/cw2ujmXRbT
— Mariana Mazzucato (@MazzucatoM) June 25, 2022
The post included a video of commentator Ana Kasparian condemning Christians for pushing their own views on non-Christians.
“These comments might be strong but it’s how I genuinely feel. I don’t care that you’re a Christian. I don’t care what the Bible says. Like, I feel like it’s a clown show, like sitting here trying to decipher what your little mythical book has to say about these very real political issues, right,” Kasparian said.
‘Shocking and scandalous’
Robert P. George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, a Catholic and outspoken advocate for the right to life, told CNA that he is disturbed by the news of the appointment.
“The Pontifical Academy for Life exists to advance the Church’s mission to foster respect for the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of each and every member of the human family, beginning with the precious child in the womb. Either one believes in this mission or one does not. If one does not, then why would one wish to be part of the Pontifical Academy?” George asked.
“And why would someone with appointment authority appoint someone to the academy? I can think of no explanation that is not shocking and scandalous,” George told CNA.
Catholic Culture shared Mazzucato’s other tweets and retweets from that time period:
- On June 23, she retweeted a tweet by Robert Reich: “So states can decide you must carry a fetus but not whether you can carry a concealed gun?”
- On June 24, she retweeted a tweet by Nicola Sturgeon: “One of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime. Obviously the immediate consequences will be suffered by women in the US—but this will embolden anti-abortion & anti-women forces in other countries too. Solidarity doesn’t feel enough right now—but it is necessary.”
- On June 24, she retweeted a tweet by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “Safe #abortion is health care. It saves lives. Restricting it drives women and girls towards unsafe abortions, resulting in complications, even death. The evidence is irrefutable.”
- On June 25, she tweeted, “Excellent @ewarren” in reaction to comments about abortion made by pro-abortion Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
- On July 2, she retweeted a tweet by Bloomberg Quicktake: “‘Safe abortion is health care. It saves lives.’ Earlier this week, WHO’s @DrTedros blasted the Supreme Court’s decision to end the constitutional right to an abortion as a ‘setback’ for the decades-long trend toward safer access.”
- On July 3, she retweeted a tweet by Robert Reich: “Call me a radical lefty, but I think it should be easier to get a life-saving abortion than an assault rifle.”
Pro-life pledge removed
The Pontifical Academy for Life was formed by St. John Paul II in 1994 with a pro-life mission to “study, information, and formation on the principal problems of biomedicine and of law, relative to the promotion and defense of life, above all in the direct relation that they have with Christian morality and the directives of the Church’s Magisterium.”
The academy’s first president, Venerable Jérôme Lejeune, established bylaws requiring members of the academy to sign a declaration stating, “before God and men we bear witness that for us every human being is a person” and that “from the moment the embryo is formed until death it is the same human being which grows to maturity and dies.”
In 2016, however, with the appointment of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Pope Francis approved new statutes that eliminated the requirement that members declare themselves “pro-life.”
However, the academy’s new statutes still require members to conform with Church teaching.
The statutes also say members, or academicians, appointed by the pope, can be of any religion, though they should “promote and defend the principles regarding the value of life and dignity of the human person, interpreted in a way that conforms to the Magisterium of the Church.”
An academician can have his or her membership revoked, the statutes say, “in the case of a public and deliberate action or statement manifestly contrary to said principles, or seriously offensive to the dignity and credibility of the Catholic Church and the Academy itself.”
However, in 2017 a pro-abortion theologian, Nigel Biggar, was appointed to the academy. An Anglican professor of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxford, he supported legalized abortion up to 18 weeks and had expressed qualified support for euthanasia, the National Catholic Register reported.
In 2021, in an address to the Pontifical Academy for Life, Pope Francis affirmed the academy’s pro-life mission. The Holy Father said that the institution’s purpose was to “help today’s men and women to rediscover ‘the primacy of the right to life from conception to its natural end.’”
Confusion over contraception
The institution received negative publicity in June over the publication of a book that appeared to condone contraception in certain cases.
At least one member of the Pontifical Academy for Life distanced herself from the book, “Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, Tradition, Practical Challenges.”
“The book is not an official statement but the seminar records in which 20 people made their personal statements. Many members didn’t know about it and are astonished,” Spain-based bioethicist Elena Postigo shared on Twitter.
Other new members
The other new members of the academy are Archbishop Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio of Lima, Peru; Federico de Montalvo Jääskeläinen, expert in constitutional law, human rights, civil liberties, and medical law and bioethics from Spain; Saad al-Din Mosaad Helaly, professor of Islamic jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University in Egypt; Dr. John N. Nkengasong, U.S. global AIDS coordinator and special representative for global health diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State; Dr. Jean-Marie Okwo-Bele, public health expert from Congo; and Sheila Dinotshe Tlou, expert on HIV/AIDS and women’s health from Botswana.
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I think I better skip this article.
I wondered why Pope Francis’ confounded statements lead to baby’s in the womb thought of as not human, but now I know the source of his confusion.
It takes time to corrupt , all the time in the world, and
it starts at the top.
Why, the Holy Father must not be aware of Ms. Mazzucato’s pro-abortion advocacy. What other explanation could there be for her appointment? Once he reads this piece, I am sure he’ll rescind it.
In all sincerity, I don’t mean anything personal. But I’m curious as to how Catholics come to be so out of touch with what Francis believes and values. He has no real serious objection at all to those who support and work for abortion, and there is no evidence at all that he ever has.
Mr. Baker, you missed my sarcasm, by which, I intended to mock the “see no evil” Catholics, who, after nearly a decade of nonstop scandal, are still out there. Many of these people will ignore or spin indefensible actions like this one. Another set will express temporary disapproval, which will be forgotten even when the offense has not been remedied. In a couple of weeks, Professor George will be writing on how Francis is truly orthodox. As I said, how many times has the same pattern repeated itself during this long and dark night?
I apologize. I came across your comments after reading my local diocesan newspaper that only allows fawning comments about Francis and my blood pressure was still elevated, so your irony escaped me.
“Vatican, we have a problem.”
This is why Catholics are so confused. We used to have one belief about things like abortion. It was wrong. Period! But when we have a wishy washy hierarchy the people suffer and make their own rules.
How utterly naive. He is in full control. To pretend the opposite is to deny Truth.
The Pontifical Academy for Life seems to have become the Pontifical Academy for Death under our current pope.
Well said.
I think I perhaps understand how and why there is a supporter of abortion rights serving on a high Vatican commmsion that supposedly exists to persuade everyone that there is no moral right to abort a baby.
I think this seeming contradiction follows logically from the Vatican II Council documents on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) and Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae), and from Vatican II Council document called The Pastorical Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes).
I’ve heard many Catholic priests say that since the Vatican II Council, the Church’s approach to issues is not longer “Either-Or” (as it was for all of Church history before the Council) but is now “Both-And.”
Haven’t you heard that?
“Who am I to judge” says the Vicar of Christ, His Holiness, the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter, the one chosen by the Holy Spirit to lead Christ’s Catholic Church.
I guess Pope Francis has set his sights on earthly goods.
Paglia.
A one-time devil’s advocate who ran with the role and has never looked back.
The Pope’s go-to who is never confronted and whom Francis never doubts.
More foreboding, “thinking that is not ideological, which moves beyond the polarization of free market capitalism and state socialism, and which has at its heart a concern that all of humanity have access to land, lodging, and labor” (Pope Francis on Ms Mazzucato).
Archbishop Paglia transformed the John Paul II Pontifical Academy for Life into a Pontifical Academy for the secularist devaluation of Life created in God’s image. Francis’ approval, the driving force of a doctrinal duality that formally reaffirms Apostolic tradition while similarly advocating the opposite, informally, by suggestive statements, appointments such as Ms Mazzucato, Jeffrey Sachs, [Synod on Synodality executives Cardinals Hollerich SJ, Mario Grech] et al who are advocates of both homosexuality and abortion, a phenomenon found to be consistently paired. Those who support LGBT+ rights virtually unanimously support lax observance on abortion practice, as do the converse.
As to ramifications frequently addressed here and elsewhere, now forthrightly, especially by typically reserved Cardinal Gerhard Müller we cannot be complacent, silently discrete. We have to address this reality openly and truthfully. As deceased signatory of the Dubia, Cardinal Carlo Maria Caffarra, President of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family 1981-95 had warned we’ve entered the final battle with the satanic. The family he was convinced would be the primary target of an Antichrist subversion, exactly what LGBT and abortion are. For a Roman pontiff to advance this agenda is consistent with Caffarra’s fears.
…homosexuality and abortion, a phenomenon found to be consistently paired.
Obviously there are sad and tragic cases among those caught up in homosexuality, but on the arrogant side of the mindset, there is seldom sufficient effort to pursue the obvious answer to why it would be the case, as reliable surveys show, that 98 percent of gays are in support of abortion.
Excellent sources.
Thank you, Fr.Morello.
The more sinners abandon honesty towards themselves and God about their very real personal sins, the more they seek to revolutionize the world so the world can eliminate “structural sins” that don’t exist. This even applies to hordes of very bored ordained men who have long forgotten their calling for holiness.
The Academy for Life was created to give witness to the ways many would dehumanize other human beings. Now a Pope, with the mind of a Marxist, finds sensibility in those who would reengineer humanity to accept life as utilitarian commodities of convenience. It would clearly temper the blowhard hitman professed outrage if plans for human husbandry promised Economic Forum elitist consensus about socially “conscious” economies.
Just this question – Is anyone really surprised?
Maybe in time this person, by being a part of the academy, will have her views changed and come to realize that abortion is MURDER.
We no longer have a need for satirical publications like the Babylon Bee. Real life at the Vatican is more satirical. Sadly.
Hey Baruch, you were right. Personal religion is true religion as all human institutions, including organized religions, eventually succumb to hubris in the form of political will of those in charge.
What is holy and what is catholic about this institutional church? This pope speaks like a drama queen. Remember, abortion is like paying a hit man? How crazy when he could have just said abortion is the worst.possible murder of a child by its mother. I honestly do not think i can hold on much longer.
Stay steadfast Alice. Even if clergy, from presbyter to the top of authority abandon the faithful to error and ill, Christ aware of all is intent on your salvation. Remember the inspiring words of the Apostle Paul, “Who is there to condemn us? Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God? And he interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Rm 8 34).
What’s wrong with this picture? Take a look around you. Bishops and clergy butting ideas on same sex marriage LGBT, 12% of catholics attending mass.an explosion of divorce.some priests claiming everyone will be saved, the fastest growing “religion being witchcraft… Does anyone read scriptures and how Christ blatantly shunned homosexuality and said no one who practices this will not enter heaven? People today want to be their own gods.
“All your country are belong to us, now. Resistance is futile.”
-Klaus Schwab
Pope Francis filling positions with pro abortion, pro homosexual, pro corrupt cardinals, lay people etc while Italy votes Ina very pro family pro life pro God govt. God counter punching ?