The Confessions of Monsignor Paglia and the Crossroads for Moral Catholic Theology

In an interview granted to Settimana News on May 21, 2026, Bishop Vincenzo Paglia claimed a decisive role in the dissolution of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and its replacement by a new academic entity, as well as in the radical transformation of the Pontifical Academy for Life. He also made clear that these interventions were intended to bring about a profound paradigm shift, which—for the first time—he explicitly acknowledged as affecting not only the pastoral sphere but the doctrinal one as well.

According to Paglia, this “very profound” reform entailed, above all, a rethinking of the very concept of natural law. Paglia accused the John Paul II Institute of advancing a conception of natural law understood as a set of immutable principles from which moral norms are deduced. He proposed, instead, that natural law must be grounded in an ongoing historical discernment of subjective and cultural experience. In this perspective, a “theology within history and within people’s lives” must replace what he characterized as the late Institute’s “armchair theology.”

We must ask ourselves whether Paglia’s criticism corresponds to the work carried out by the John Paul II Institute. Only then will we be in a position to evaluate the merits of Paglia’s new doctrinal proposals and understand the true reason for the abolition of the institute.

1. First, let us consider John Paul II’s original intent and the accomplishments of the Institute he founded on May 13, 1981, in the aftermath of the first Synod on the Family and on the eve of the publication of Familiaris Consortio.

A careful study of John Paul II’s correspondence with Paul VI, conducted in the archives of the Archdiocese of Krakow by Paweł Gałuszka, revealed Wojtyla’s significant influence on the preparation and reception of the encyclical Humanae Vitae. St. John Paul II believed that the issue of conjugal and family morality posed a decisive challenge to the Church. However, he also believed that the framework of moral theology in Catholic textbooks was inadequate to address this challenge. Neither the traditional natural-law and legalistic approach nor a personalism of conscience detached from nature did justice to the positive value of conjugal sexuality and the personalistic character of procreation.

Archbishop Wojtyła felt the need for an anthropology suited to the experience of love and for a theology of the body. What he had suggested to Paul VI, he was able to bring to fruition once he became Pope. Through his Catecheses on Human Love in the Divine Plan (1979–1984), he illustrated the greatness of the vocation to love, to the gift of oneself, to the communion of persons, and to collaboration with God in the generation of new life.

At the same time, the Polish pope realized that the resistance and objections to Paul VI’s encyclical were not just partial and occasional. They were leading to a comprehensive and systematic challenge to the Church’s “sound moral doctrine.” In the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, he pointed the way toward a personalist reinterpretation of natural law. In this text, John Paul II interpreted natural law through the concept of the gift of self that the Creator has inscribed in the human body, and that can be discovered through reason and virtue (cf. n. 48). Natural law arises from reason’s capacity to grasp “in the light of the dignity of the person” the specific moral value of certain goods toward which the person is naturally inclined. Thus, “the goods for the person,” that is, the object of our natural inclinations, become morally relevant in the perspective of “the good of the person” as such (ibid).

In the Apostolic Constitution Magnum Matrimonii Sacramentum, issued on October 7, 1982, by which he granted the Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family definitive legal status, the Polish pope explicitly cited Humanae Vitae. He identified “God’s plan for marriage and the family” as the object of study, emphasizing that the full truth of this plan must be sought through an interdisciplinary approach. This outlined two main lines of development for theological research: theological anthropology and moral theology.

Let us now examine how the Institute has developed these two strands over its 36 years of existence. We observe a comprehensive approach that, on the one hand, overcomes strong resistance from preconceived biases against the moral teaching of the Church, and, on the other hand, transcends the limitations of a neo-scholastic anthropology of the faculties centered on human action.

a) On the anthropological front, the Institute has offered a vision of the human person centered on the nuptial mystery. This vision highlights the dynamism that sexual difference introduces into human life by opening it to the possibility of a new love capable of generating life. The human person is understood precisely in terms of his or her constitutive relationality. The human person is not only born of love but also opens himself to new relationships in love, which enrich his being. Thus, the decisive stages of human flourishing can be outlined: being sons or daughters, becoming spouses, and ultimately becoming parents. Nature is thus seen within the dynamic of growth conformed by the gift of love, and not simply as a metaphysically predetermined development from which the rules of action could be deduced.

Within this framework, it is clear that the Institute has not focused solely—as Monsignor Paglia believes—on a narrow vision of the couple, neglecting to consider the family. On the contrary, it has been clear from the outset that the couple opens beyond itself, to all of creation and to society as a whole. The titles of some of the symposia and publications confirm this: “Toward a Culture of the Family,” “Family and the New Evangelization,” “Social Subjectivity of the Family,” “Anthropology of Generativity,” “A Covenant of Generations,” “Business, Family and Sustainable Development,” “The Family, God’s Light in a Society Where God is Absent,” “Family and Home: Building, Generating, Dwelling,” “The Mystery of Childhood,” “Sacramental Action and Family Life,” “Fatherhood”…

Moreover, the Institute’s method of work has always developed through engagement with the human sciences, particularly sociology and psychology (maintaining long-standing relationships with the Department of Family Studies at the University of Bologna and with the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan). In addition, seminars and conferences have been organized in dialogue with the major religious and wisdom traditions: with Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, the Zaytuna Islamic University in Tunis, and representatives of Buddhism and Hinduism.

b) In the realm of moral reflection, a systematic approach was developed since the establishment of the International Research Area in Moral Theology in 1997, centered on the encounter with Christ as the radical wellspring of the Christian moral experience. This was made possible by a clear vision of love as the foundational experience of morality—due to the transformation love brings about and the fullness it promises—thereby clarifying what happiness is. In this light, it became possible to understand how the formation of the moral subject takes place, not as an extrinsic imposition of an ideal, but as the fruit of a love that reorders life and gives meaning to freedom. Love, in fact, generates the virtues as excellences of the person that enable him to act with excellence together with others. Charity, as friendship with God and with others in the Church, thus manifests its great and definitive contribution: the formation of the Christian subject.

For more than 22 years, the Research Area in Moral Theology had set itself the goal—at the suggestion of then-Cardinal Ratzinger—of engaging in dialogue with moral theologians of various tendencies, including those opposed to the approach developed at the Institute, and of drawing upon all the valuable insights found in their research. Here, just to give a taste, are several names of those invited to engage in dialogue: W. Pannenberg, S. Pinckaers, R. Tremblay, B. Petrà, E. Schockenhoff, G. Angelini, P. Wadell, E. Falque, G. Abbà, E. Feder Kitay, A. Rodríguez Luño, F. Botturi, L. F. Ladaria, K. Flannery, B. Kiely, S. Hauerwas, Ph. Bordeyne, A. Ales Bello, P. Gilbert, M. Chiodi, S. P. Bonanni, J. Mimeault, M. Sherwin, M. S. Archer, P. Donati, E. Scabini, J. Milbank, T. Rowland. But also, at other moments in the life of the Institute, A.M. Pelletier, X. Lacroix, J.L. Marion, S. Ubbiali, C. Pagazzi, P. Gisel.

This dialogue has enriched us professors and our students. A glance at the titles of some of the conferences organized also reveals the breadth of the vision: “The Question Regarding the Good, and the Question Regarding God”; “What Is the Foundation for Action? Ecclesiological Dimensions of Morality”; “The Path of Life: Education, a Challenge for Morality”; “Action, A Source of Novelty”; “The Intelligence of Love: A New Moral Epistemology Beyond the Dialectic Between Norm and Case”; “Walking in the Light: Perspectives on Moral Theology Beginning with Veritatis Splendor”; “The Sequela Christi: Moral and Spiritual Dimensions of the Christian Experience”; “The Logos of Agape: Love and Reason as Principles of Action”; “Love as the Principle of Social Life”; “The Revelation of Love and the Response of Freedom”; “The Family: Key to the Church-World Dialogue”; “Rebuilding the Christian Moral Subject”; “The Moral Subjectivity of the Body.” But also, in a clear pastoral key: “Loving Human Love”; “The Family, a Resource for Society”; “Oil on the Wounds: A Response to the Scourges of Abortion and Divorce”; “Mercy As Pastoral Truth.”

These two strands (anthropological and moral) found a decisive point of convergence in the sacramental perspective developed at the Institute. The sacraments conform the ultimate meaning of human life and of all reality: to be a gift that, when we receive it, enables us to be the gift of self. Human action finds in the sacraments that source which comes from God and incorporates the dynamism of our moral action into the action of Christ, so that we may share in his virtues.

Within this sacramental dynamism, marriage has been understood at the Institute as a strategic sacrament. Being the original setting for the language of the body as an expression of self-giving, marriage proves to be a key to understanding the nature of all the sacraments through its connection to the Eucharistic gift of Christ’s body. From this perspective, concrete proposals were developed to help married couples live out their vocation to holiness, as well as pastoral programs of accompaniment aimed at leading those who are not yet able to live according to Jesus’ teaching on marriage and the family back to the truth of love.

The fruit of this research and teaching was, in fact, the most surprising aspect: the students emerged with a new light, a desire to share it, and an awareness of how to accompany families. Upon returning to their home countries, they became beacons of light, demonstrating great pastoral creativity, and continuing to nurture the friendships they had forged with professors and colleagues. The twelve sections of the Institute that have developed across the five continents are evidence of the pastoral fruitfulness and the potential universality of this vision and this method of working.

In light of all this, it is truly difficult to understand the criticism that Paglia directs at the work of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute. Neither what has just been said regarding the Institute’s two main pillars (anthropological and moral), nor the courses, nor the doctoral research, nor the articles in the journal Anthropotes, nor the published books reflect an “armchair theology,” a narrow apologetic approach centered on an ahistorical nature and moral absolutes, conceived as an abstract ethical deduction and incapable of interpreting people’s lived experiences. On the contrary, what has emerged has been precisely a theology of love, seeking to shed light through reason on this experience of love, fundamental to people’s lives, and to support them on their journey. Paglia’s criticism therefore appears ideological and superficial, since it does not address the substance of the scientific work carried out at the Institute and goes so far as to equate it with the neoscholastic approach for the sole purpose of challenging the Church’s moral teaching.

2. We thus return to the radical paradigm shift advocated by Bishop Paglia, which is made explicit above all in the volume he edited, published by the Pontifical Academy for Life under the title Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, Tradition, Practical Challenges (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2022), to which he himself refers. It also includes a so-called “basic document,” which was intended to revise the teaching of the encyclical Humanae vitae, but was never actually published as a papal text. It has already been the subject of thorough criticism in a volume edited by R. Fastiggi and M. Levering: Humanae vitae and Catholic Sexual Morality. A response to the Pontifical Academy for Life’s Etica Teologica della vita (Sapientia Press, Ave Maria, FL 2024).

The two theoretical cornerstones of Paglia’s document are the primacy of hermeneutics and the consequent primacy of subjective conscience. The first assertion establishes the so-called “principle of immanence” characteristic of modernism: the complete historicity of the interpreting subject, whereby the subject is always in a perspectival position, conditioned by his or her existential and cultural situation, and can never have immediate and direct contact with reality. “There are no facts, only interpretations,” Nietzsche said. In theology, this means that its desired pastoral conversion would require constantly contextualizing every statement, so as to reshape and rethink doctrine to adapt it to today’s mindset. Thus, for example, the new situation experienced by remarried divorcees or cohabiting couples becomes an opportunity to reshape the doctrine on adultery, on sexuality outside of marriage, and on the conditions for receiving the sacraments.

The second assertion simplistically identifies the moral subject with his conscience, reducing to it every prior given that might serve as an objective criterion of truth: a veritable hypertrophy of conscience, which is no longer merely a reflective judgment on the morality of an act, but absorbs the moral norm into itself. Thus, while embracing the old framework of post-Tridentine manuals—which pitted law against conscience in a systemic dialectic—one seeks to resolve this conflict by abolishing the objective reference point. Since “only the conscience of the moral agent can formulate the concrete norm for action,” it takes on the form of a subjective, autonomous, and unappealable “decision.” This amounts to a denial of moral absolutes, namely, the possibility of defining negative moral norms that are valid without exception, because they refer to actions that are intrinsically evil due to their moral object.

The historical dimension of the human being—who always lives within a particular culture—must not, however, deny that there exists within man something that transcends cultures. St. John Paul II, in Veritatis splendor, reminds us that this something is precisely human nature, which is therefore the measure of culture (no. 53). This affirmation of human nature is not merely something that belongs to human reason, safeguarding it from a relativism that would leave the door open to violations of the rights of the person and of peoples, as the history of 20th-century totalitarianism has tragically demonstrated. It also pertains to the doctrine of the faith, because the question of human nature calls into play the ultimate Christological foundation and the very truth of redemption. Indeed, the encyclical Veritatis splendor, citing the Second Vatican Council’s constitution Gaudium et spes, teaches: “The Church affirms that beneath all changes there are many things that do not change and are ultimately founded upon Christ, who is the same yesterday and today and forever. Christ is the Beginning who, having taken on human nature, definitively illuminates it in its constitutive elements and in its dynamism of charity toward God and neighbor (no. 53).”

3. The exposition of the achievements of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute and of the new paradigm proposed by Paglia brings into focus the ultimate reason for the Institute’s suppression. Paglia’s actions were not motivated by theological reasons but by an ideological critique of the Institute. Yet ideology, as Karl Marx famously argued, serves to mask interests that dare not speak their name. What, then, was the unspoken motive behind the dismantling of a flourishing institution founded by a holy and prophetic Pope?

One might answer: the difficulty of accepting the message on marriage and the family that the Church has proposed thus far, which Paglia considered unreasonable and impractical. From this perspective, his intervention has in fact prevented the further development of a proposal capable of remaining faithful to the Church’s traditional teaching while at the same time presenting it in terms understandable to contemporary man—a proposal endowed with pastoral fruitfulness that would truly enable people to live it out.

One need only consider the other key concept that characterizes Paglia’s paradigm shift: the concept of the “possible good,” which becomes the criterion for establishing the morally binding norm. The entirely traditional principle that “ad impossibilia nemo tenetur” is applied even in the case of negative moral precepts, which prohibit intrinsically evil actions. This runs counter to the constant tradition of the Church, as expressed by the Council of Trent on the basis of a text by St. Augustine: “No one should adopt that reckless expression—condemned by the Fathers with excommunication—according to which it is impossible for a justified person to observe God’s commandments. For God does not command what is impossible, but in commanding, He exhorts you to do all you can, to ask for what you cannot do, and helps you so that you may be able to do it; for “God’s commandments are not burdensome” (cf. 1 Jn 5:3) and “His yoke is easy and His burden is light” (cf. Mt 11:30).”

This is the teaching of Saint John Paul II in Veritatis splendor, nos. 102–103, which warns against such oversimplifications. He reminds us that the reality of redemption is at stake here, because “only in the mystery of Christ’s Redemption do we discover the ‘concrete’ possibilities of man.” Consequently, “would be a very serious error to conclude… that the Church’s teaching is essentially only an ‘ideal’ which must then be adapted, proportioned, graduated to the so-called concrete possibilities of man, according to a ‘balancing of the goods in question’.”

The Pontifical John Paul II Institute—the original one that was dissolved—had demonstrated precisely the reasonableness of the Christian message, in that it corresponds to authentic human desire. It had also demonstrated the practicality of this message through the sacraments and ecclesial accompaniment. Such an accompaniment, in the concreteness of its various community forms, becomes the womb where the moral subject is rebuilt and reinvigorated thanks to the transformation of his desires through the practices proposed to him. This path—the narrow path of the regeneration of the person through a patient healing and educational process within a community—is the path that Paglia’s intervention sought to close.

This intervention, however, has extended beyond the Institute’s classrooms and publications. It has touched the Church itself, which today finds itself at a crucial crossroads. On the one hand, it can continue to proclaim the Gospel of the greatness of the human vocation, explaining who the human person is, what his highest calling is, what marriage and the family are, and what paths lead to living out this vocation to love. In other words, it can invite people to turn their gaze first and foremost to Christ and to God’s original plan. On the other hand, it can renounce this perspective of the narrow path, closing its eyes to the greatness of this call and reducing it to the actual possibilities of wounded humanity living in today’s context.

What kind of moral vision does the Church want? Does she want a watered-down morality, a sort of “minimalist Pelagianism,” which, by not relying on divine grace, ends up abandoning the call to the fullness of Christian life and resigns herself to human weaknesses and frailties as though they were impossible to overcome? Or a morality that offers a path for those who humbly ask for the grace necessary to live up to the vocation of self-giving and seek an ecclesial context in which to live it out? Put another way, what hope does the Church wish to offer to the wounded person in search of meaning? The hope of those who are content with their own situation, or the hope of those who know they are called to a great destiny and have before them a path made up of small but significant steps?

In reality, as we have seen, Paglia’s paradigm is by no means new; rather, it is an outdated paradigm—not only because it revives the post-Tridentine casuistic dialectic between law and conscience, but also because, at its core, it denies the enduring newness of Christ, who did not come to abolish the law but to give us the ability to fulfill it and thus bring to fruition God’s great plan of love. To be merciful, the Church does not need to water down the fullness of life she proposes and adapt to the world’s standards, but rather to proclaim the good news of grace—which enables us to live up to our divine vocation despite our frailties and weaknesses.

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