Catching up with Sandro Magister's posts...
From Louvain To Rome,
the euthanasia of 'non-negotiable principles'
[At the very hands of 'Doctor' Bergoglio]
Adapted from the English service of
April 10, 2017
There has been an uproar over events at
the Catholic University of Louvain, which has suspended and finally dismissed one of its philosophy professors, Stéphane Mercier, for having written in a note for his students that “abortion is the murder of an innocent person.”
The matter is not surprising, seeing the track record of this university which is nonetheless endowed with the title of “Catholic,” the hospital of which has for some time been openly practicing euthanasia procedures, “from 12 to 15 per year,” according to the rector of the twin Flemish university of Leuven, the canonist Rik Torfs.
[The Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCL) was founded in 1425 but suppressed from 1787-1834 during the Napoleonic period. In 1834, the institution was re-established as two separate entities, the French-speaking UCL and the Flemish-speaking Catholic University of Leuven (Flemish form of Louvain). Despite a court ruling that decided that the UCL founded in 1834 cannot be considered a continuation of the one founded in 1425, the university has nonetheless incorporated 1425 into its official logo.
For centuries, UCL was considered a premier center of educational excellence in Catholic education and theology, but in recent decades, it has adopted the ultra-liberal positions of the dominant Church hierarchy in Belgium exemplified by Cardinal Danneels. Perhaps the most prominent Louvain alumnus known to English-speaking Catholics is the Venerable Fulton Sheen, who obtained his Ph.D. from Louvain in 1923. In 1980, a few months before his death, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, beatified as a martyr last year, was given an honorary doctorate by the UCL.]
But what is more striking is the substantial approval that the bishops of Belgium have given to the removal of Professor Mercier.
Also startling is the reticence of the newspaper of the Italian episcopal conference,
Avvenire, which in giving a concise account of the affair - the more complete documentation of which has appeared on the blog Rossoporpora - avoided taking a position, limiting itself to this:
“It remains to be understood what is the meaning of what has been stated by the spokesman of the Belgian episcopal conference.”
Not to mention the silence of Pope Francis, who however has not failed on other occasions to call abortion a “horrendous crime.”
There is in effect a significant discrepancy between how the papacy and much of the Catholic hierarchy speak out on abortion and euthanasia today and how they used to speak out.
What during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI were “non-negotiable principles” have now become realities to be “discerned” and “mediated” both in politics and in pastoral practice.
The Italian episcopal conference and its newspaper
Avvenire are perfect examples of this mutation.
In February of 2009, when Italy was rocked by the case of Eluana Englaro, the young woman in a vegetative state whose life was taken when her nutrition and hydration were cut off, the current editor of
Avvenire, Marco Tarquinio, wrote a fiery editorial, calling that act a “killing”.
Today,
Avvenire is singing an entirely new [Bergoglian] hymn. Just consider the
courteous detachment with which
Avvenirerefers to and comments on the law currently under discussion in Italy on advance healthcare directives, abbreviated DAT - instructions meant to be given to physicians beforehand on what lifesaving measures to take or not take in case of loss of consciousness.
One glaring example of this change of course is given by Professor Francesco D'Agostino, professor of the philosophy of law at the University of Roma Tor Vergata and at the Pontifical Lateran University, president of the Union of Italian Catholic Journalists, honorary president of the Italian national bioethics committee, member of the Pontifical Academy for Life
[at least until all the Academy members were dismissed recently preparatory to a full overhaul under its Bergoglio-appointed president Mons. Vincenzo Paglia], and editorialist for
Avvenire - in short, someone who was a contemporary reference point for the Italian Church on questions of bioethics.
The letter reproduced below brings to light the sea change between what Professor D'Agostino writes today on advance healthcare directives and what he wrote on the same subject ten years ago.
The author of the letter is attorney Antonio Caragliu, of the Trieste bar, he too a member of the Union of Italian Catholic Jurists.
Two observations for better understanding his statements:
- the honorable Mario Marazziti, member of parliament since 2013 and president of the commission for social affairs that deals with the law on DAT, is a high-ranking member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, of which he was spokesman for many years
[and of which the ubiquitous and increasingly infamous Mons. Paglia has been spiritual director from the beginning];
- Bishop Nunzio Galantino, secretary general of the Italian episcopal conference and with a direct connection to Pope Francis, who personally placed him in this position in 2013 and confirmed him until 2019, is de facto the sole editor of
Avvenireover which he has full and compelling control.
Here is the letter.
Dear Magister,
I find it interesting to compare the editorial by Francesco D'Agostino, published in Avvenire on March 30, 2017, entitled "On DAT a good law is needed. Not everything is euthanasia. History calls for courage,” with another editorial of his, published ten years before, also in Avvenire, on April 6, 2007, eloquently entitled “Like a booby trap into euthanasia.”
In 2007 D'Agostino maintained that advance healthcare directives could be considered justified and valid only under certain conditions, among which he contemplated the following:
1. that the physician, the recipient of the advance directives, while having the duty to take them into adequate and serious consideration, should never be bound by law to observe them (just as the physician of a “competent” patient can never be turned into a blind and passive executor of this person’s requests);
2. that the refusal of treatment should not include artificial hydration and nutrition, since these should be considered “pre-medical forms of vital support, endowed with the highest ethical and symbolic value, the suspension of which would in fact carry out a particularly insidious, because indirect, form of euthanasia.” In maintaining this, D'Agostino referred to the December 18, 2003 document of the national bioethics committee on “Advance healthcare directives.”
Now, article 3 of the draft legislation currently under review by the commission for social affairs, headed by the honorable Mario Marazziti, does not respect either of these two conditions.
But in spite of this, Professor D'Agostino writes that “the draft legislation is in no way aimed at introducing into Italy a system that would legalize euthanasia.” On the contrary, only “a devious and malevolent interpreter” could reach such a conclusion, through a “forced interpretation.”
Many Catholic jurists are understandably surprised by the about-face of Professor D'Agostino, who heads their association. [Which only shows that the professor appears to be totally unprincipled - not caring that he is contradicting today what he wrote with equal fervor ten years ago. ]
It is an about-face that, in my view, could find an explanation in the position of substantial approval for the draft legislation currently under review that was expressed by the secretary general of the Italian episcopal conference, Nunzio Galantino, at the concluding press conference for the permanent council of the CEI on January 26, 2017.
On that occasion Galantino said:
“On the commission for social affairs, headed by the honorable Mario Marazziti, they are preparing a text that should be looked at with some interest. It has clearly emerged that all the power must not be attributed to the person, because self-determination dismantles the alliance between patient, physician, and relatives, and ends up being only a triumph of individualism.”
In short, for Galantino the text under review represents a good compromise - all this in line with the now well-known policy of the secretary general of the CEI, who has been careful to avoid any seeming non-identity of positions between the Church in Italy and the center-left government in office. As if to say that the action of Catholics in politics must be dictated by the views of the high churchman of the day, in this case him [as a surrogate for the Primate of Italy who is also pope], in yet another form of clericalism.
Obviously the situation is unpleasant, from various points of view.
It is to be hoped that Professor D'Agostino, the one of 2007, who is a person of proven intelligence and competence, may sort things out with the Professor D'Agostino of 2017. And then, perhaps, face up to Bishop Galantino. Without seconding him.
Warm regards,
Antonio Caragliu
Obviously, Avvenire as well as Prof. D'Agostino [and probably the rest of the newspaper's stable of writers] have come down firmly today on the side of the church of Bergoglio, articulating all its positions as best they can -where in 2007, they were all followers of the one holy Catholic apostolic Roman Church. It is sheer apostasy, and everything that appears in Avvenire must be considered in that light. The Italian bishops' conference must now be renamed the Italian bishops' conference of the church of Bergoglio.
On the first anniversary of AL:
Two bishops speak out for interpreting it
in the light of Tradition
Adapted from the English service of
April 7, 2017
Day after day, the DUBIA submitted to the pope and then made public last November by cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond L. Burke, Carlo Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner on the most controversial points of “Amoris Laetitia” seem to be shared by larger and larger segments of the Church.
Limiting the review only to the cardinals and bishops who have spoken out publicly for or against the step taken toward the pope by the four cardinals, those in favor continue to be more numerous than those against.
Joining the ranks of these latter are the Italian Bruno Forte, former special secretary of the synod of bishops on the family, and the Argentine Eduardo Horacio Garcia, former vicar of Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires and now bishop of San Justo.
While to those who think the DUBIA should be answered have been added - with respect to the previous count by Settimo Cielo that already had them in the lead - cardinals Wilfrid Fox Napier, Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, Mauro Piacenza, and bishops Charles Chaput, already the author of “Guidelines” that made a stir, Luigi Negri, Athanasius Schneider, Tomash Peta, Jan Pawel Lenga.
But even more attention should be given to two particularly significant recent contributions, from a cardinal and a bishop who have both sided with an interpretation of AL decidedly in line with the traditional magisterium of the Church and therefore in support of the initiative of the four cardinals.
[But what has been left unsaid in all this is that all those who choose to interpret AL in the light of Tradition are really bending over backwards to be charitable in giving this benefit of the doubt to the Bishop of Rome - despite abundant, overwhelming and continuing Bergoglian evidence to the contrary!]
The cardinal is John Onaiyekan, archbishop of Abuja, in Nigeria, one of the most authoritative and influential personalities of the African continent.
In an extensive interview with John Allen for the portal Crux, when asked about AL and communion for the divorced and remarried Onaiyekan replied:
“There’s nothing the pope has said where we weren’t already working more or less along that line. It may be that a man and a woman are in an irregular condition, but that doesn’t mean they’re excommunicated. We’ve always found a way of welcoming them...
On the other hand, we still let them know that receiving Holy Communion is an external expression of our faith. We cannot judge what is inside your heart, so we must make rules that determine who receives Communion and who does not. Our people are aware that this is the rule...
I like the expression of the pope that they are not, by that fact, excommunicated.
[But, Your Eminence, that is what the Church has always said. Why should Bergoglio get any points for reiterating it?] Now, to say that someone is not excommunicated does not mean they can receive Communion. [Now this statement is what Bergoglio ought to have added, but one he could not possibly say honestly!]
“Is there a big debate within the Church on this matter? It’s not really true. There may be some theologians talking about it here and there, but you definitely don’t hear much otherwise, for instance from the bishops’ conferences.”