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Mariana MazzucatoSimon Fraser University/Wikimedia Commons

(LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis himself chose a pro-abortion economist for the Pontifical Academy for Life. 

In response to the outcry over the recent, highly controversial, appointment of  World Economic Forum-linked Mariana Mazzucato as an “Ordinary Academic,” the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAL) sent a statement to chosen journalists covering the Vatican to defend it. 

According to Catholic News Agency (CNA), the PAL statement confirmed that the pontiff himself had nominated the new members of the PAL: 

All Academics are chosen from among scientists and experts of absolute importance, as Pope Francis reiterated in the Letter ‘Humana Communitas’ of 2019 to the Pontifical Academy for Life. The nominations of the Ordinary Academics are made by the Pope. 

The statement also declared that people with “skills in various disciplines and from different contexts,” would contribute to a “fruitful interdisciplinary, intercultural and interreligious dialogue.” 

“This is why among the academics there are also non-Catholic people: two rabbis, a Shinto academician, Muslims, an Anglican theologian. The Pontifical Academy for Life is a study and research body. So the debate and dialogue take place between people of different backgrounds,” the statement said. 

Furthermore, the statement also communicated that the nominees, including Mazzucato, went through a selection process and no red flags were raised: 

… [B]efore being nominated, the names proposed or reported go through a procedure that foresees the consultation of the Apostolic Nuncio and the Episcopal Conference of the countries where the Academics live and work. It also happened in this case and there were no problems.

The press release also noted that the documents published by the PAL “are sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF] before being published.” 

Mazzucato is a self-described “atheist” and professor of economics at University College London (UCL). She is a speaker at the WEF – the globalist group behind the socialist, anti-Christian Great Reset agenda – and also enthusiastically pro-abortion, in direct contradiction to the unchangeable teaching of the Catholic Church.  

RELATED: Pope appoints pro-abortion World Economic Forum speaker to Pontifical Academy for Life

In June, following the United States Supreme Court’s overturning of the landmark 1973 pro-abortion Roe v. Wade decision, Mazzucato tweeted “So good!” in response to a pro-abortion commentator making anti-Christian statements disparaging the Bible while condemning the court’s pro-life ruling. 

According to an article in the National Catholic Reporter, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia told media that Mazzucato’s tweets may have been “pro-choice” but not “pro-abortion.” Paglia, the president of PAL, allegedly said regarding Mazzucato that “our vetting showed that in her scientific work she has never taken a position against life. You cannot judge the deepest convictions of a person by four tweets.” 

Paglia also reportedly claimed that while the Catholic Church is opposed to abortion, it recognizes that in some situations people of goodwill can support laws and public policy designed to reduce recourse to abortion while allowing the procedure in some cases. However, it is very clear in PAL founder St. John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae that this is not an approval of the legalised killing.

It reads:

… A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. It is a fact that while in some parts of the world there continue to be campaigns to introduce laws favouring abortion, often supported by powerful international organizations, in other nations-particularly those which have already experienced the bitter fruits of such permissive legislation-there are growing signs of a rethinking in this matter. In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects. (Evangelium Vitae, 73)

Support for abortion is clearly contrary to valuing life and the dignity of the human person as the Church Magisterium interprets it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that ”human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.” (CCC 2270) 

LifeSiteNews contacted the Pontifical Academy for Life to confirm if Paglia’s statements about Mazzucato’s pro-abortion stance are accurate but has not yet received a response. 

Mazzucato’s appointment contradicts the PAL’s own statutes. Even though the statutes say that members can be of any religion, new Academicians need to “commit themselves to promoting and defending the principles regarding the value of life and the dignity of the human person, interpreted in a way consonant with the Church’s Magisterium.” 

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