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Msgr. Renzo Pegoraro, rector of the Pontifical Academy for LifeYouTube

(LifeSiteNews) — The Pontifical Academy for Life’s (PAV) Twitter account retweeted a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article about changing Catholic teaching on contraception.

The article, titled “Is the Catholic Church Rethinking Contraception?,” lays out the debate inside the Church about changing the teaching on contraception. It was retweeted by the PAV on December 30, 2022, and represents the latest scandal of heterodoxy by the increasingly dissident Vatican organization.

Francis X. Rocca, the author of the WSJ essay, gives an overview of the current discussion on the Church’s contraception ban.

“Under Pope Francis, who has encouraged debate on a number of questions previously considered closed — including divorce and homosexuality — the church at its highest levels is now debating the morality of contraception, more than half a century after another pope was supposed to have handed down a definitive statement on the matter,” Rocca writes.

Rocca cites the PAV’s recent book titled “Theological Ethics of Life,” which included the claim that contraception may in certain cases represent a “wise choice.”

RELATED: Pontifical Academy for Life’s new book deviates from Church teaching on contraception, artificial insemination

The author of the WSJ article points out that “both sides in the debate agree that what is at stake isn’t merely a particular prohibition but the church’s wider approach to sexual and medical ethics.”

Rocca quotes Msgr. Renzo Pegoraro, the chancellor of the PAV, who suggested that the possibility of “transmission of life” in the marital act may be in conflict with “other values worth protecting.” He argued that contraception may be permissible “in the case of a conflict between the need to avoid pregnancy for medical reasons and the preservation of a couple’s sex life.”

The WSJ journal article attributes the apparent change in the Vatican’s approach to the teaching on sexuality to Pope Francis’ “leniency” toward the reception of communion for the divorced and civilly remarried expressed in his infamous 2016 encyclical Amoris Laetitia.

As LifeSiteNews writer Louis Knuffke explained, the Church’s total ban on contraception cannot ever be changed, since it is a matter of the natural moral law “and has been clearly and constantly taught by the Church’s Magisterium over the course of the last century.”

READ: The Church’s total ban on contraception cannot be changed by Pope Francis or anyone else

A few months ago, the PAV had another “Twitter scandal” when its official Twitter account “liked” a post by Fr. James Martin, SJ that promoted a pro-LGBT reading of the Bible.

READ: Pontifical Academy for Life ‘likes’ Fr. James Martin’s latest Twitter post pushing LGBT agenda

As the WSJ author pointed out in his essay, the PAV and the Vatican have become open to dissent on the Church’s perennial teaching on sexuality under Francis’ leadership.

The Roman Pontiff appointed Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as the president of the PAV in 2016 and since then the academy has become increasingly heterodox and appointed many pro-abortion, pro-contraception, and pro-LGBT members. The following list is a chronological excerpt of the PAV’s many scandals in the past years.

2016

  • Pope Francis changed the statutes of the PAV so that new members were no longer required to sign a declaration that they uphold the Church’s pro-life teachings. Francis has also expanded the PAV mandate to include a focus on the environment.
  • Francis removed every single member of the PAV by December 31, 2016, setting the stage for a complete revamp of the formerly staunchly pro-life organization founded by Pope John Paul II.

2017

  • PAV President Vincenzo Paglia praised the radical pro-abortion and pro-divorce politician Marco Pannella.
  • Paglia commissioned a homosexual artist to paint a homoerotic mural in his cathedral church.

2018

  • Paglia sided with the judge in the case of Alfie Evans, saying that removing the baby’s ventilator against the parents’ wishes is just stopping ‘overzealous treatment.’
  • A newly appointed member of the PAV, Professor Marie-Jo Thiel, said that the Church’s teaching on sexuality and family should be thoroughly reconsidered. She pointed to Pope Francis’s exhortation Amoris Laetitia as having given Catholics more freedom in the area of sexuality.

2019

  • Paglia said in a speech at a private Jesuit university in Los Angeles that the PAV, according to Francis’ vision, must welcome non-Christian experts in order to “widen its horizon.” He also made ambiguous remarks about redefining the term “life.”
  • Paglia said at a press conference that priests can be present at assisted suicides to “hold the hand” of the person who decided to be euthanized.

2021

  • In February 2021, Pope Francis appointed four new members to the PAV, including Professor Gualtiero Walter Ricciardi, a World Health Organization member and mRNA “vaccine” and lockdown advocate who demanded that public Masses be banned during the COVID crisis. Another new member was Sister Margarita Bofarull i Buñuel, who supports legal abortion and euthanasia.
  • In September of the same year, the PAV hosted a public health conference where the participants promoted the abortion-tainted and dangerous COVID injections and criticized so-called “vaccine hesitancy.”

2022

January

  • The PAV attacked Catholics who refuse to take the abortion-tainted COVID shots, claiming that “#VaccinesSaveLives and abortions have nothing to do with. [sic] The rest is pure nonsense[.]”
  • Two members of the PAV, Jesuit Fr. Carlo Casalone, and Marie-Jo Thiel publicly supported assisted suicide.

July

  • The PAV published the book “Theological Ethics of Life. Scripture, Tradition, Practical Challenges that included the claim that contraception may in certain cases represent a “wise choice.”
  • After the pro-contraception book received criticism, the PAV defended the book by stating that “what is dissent today can change.”

August

  • Fr. Maurizio Chiodi, a member of the PAV, claimed that the Catholic teaching banning contraception is ‘reformable doctrine.’

September

  • In September, the PAV’s official Twitter account “liked” a post by Fr. James Martin promoting a pro-LGBT reading of the Bible.

October

  • Francis appointed the atheist, pro-abortion economist and World Economic Forum speaker Mariana Mazzucato to the PAV as one of its new “Ordinary Academicians.”
  • Pope Francis made pro-contraception Jesuit Fr. Humberto Miguel Yanez a full member of the PAV.
  • A member of the PAV, Professor Roberto Dell’Oro, called the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that overturned Roe v. Wade undemocratic and totalitarian and said that abortion gives women “moral agency.”
  • The PAV added a new member, Professor Sheila Tlou, who had voiced support for contraception and abortion in the past.

November

  • Pope Francis defended the appointment of pro-abortion atheist Mazzucato during an in-flight interview, saying he “put her there to give a little more humanity to it.”

December

  • Paglia sued the Catholic News outlet The Pillar for claiming that “Paglia used charity funds to renovate [his personal] apartment.”
  • PAV’s official Twitter account retweets a WSJ article discussing the possibility of changing the Catholic doctrine on contraception.

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