His Excellency Vincenzo Paglia | |
---|---|
| |
![]() | |
Church | Roman Catholic Church |
Predecessor | Ignacio Carrasco de Paula; Agostino Vallini |
Orders | |
Ordination | 15 March 1970 by Angelo Dell'Acqua |
Consecration | 2 April 2000 by Camillo Ruini |
Personal details | |
Born | Boville Ernica, Frosinone, Italy | 20 April 1945
Previous post(s) |
|
Motto | Gaudium et spes (Joy and hope) |
Coat of arms | ![]() |
Vincenzo Paglia (born 20 April 1945) is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. He is the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and grand chancellor of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.
Paglia was president of the Pontifical Council for the Family from 2012 to 2016 and Bishop of Terni-Narni-Amelia from 2000 to 2012. He was also a co-founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio in 1968. Paglia was the postulator for the cause of canonization of Óscar Romero and of Felix Varela. [1]
Paglia was born in Boville Ernica, Frosinone, Italy. He was educated at the Pontifical Roman Minor and Major Seminary. He earned a Licentiate in Philosophy and a degree in Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University, Rome. He also earned a master's degree in Pedagogy from the University of Urbino, Italy. As a student in 1968, he was one of the co-founders of the Community of Sant'Egidio, an association of lay Catholics.
He was ordained a priest for the diocese of Rome on 15 March 1970 and served as a curate in Casal Palocco from 1970 to 1973. Later, he was rector of the Church of Sant'Egidio in Trastevere. From 1981 to 2000, he was the pastor of the Basilica parish of Santa Maria in Trastevere. There in 1982, he initiated the annual Christmas lunch (Pranzo di Natale) for the homeless and the poor, a project of the Community of Sant'Egidio held inside the church. [2]
He was the first priest to enter Albania after the elections in March and April 1991. He successfully negotiated the re-opening of the seminary and the return of the cathedral, and he paved the way for relations between Albania and the Holy See.[ citation needed ]
On 4 March 2000, Pope John Paul II appointed him bishop of Terni-Narni-Amelia. He received episcopal consecration from Cardinal Camillo Ruini on 2 April and took possession of the diocese on 16 April.
In September 2002, John Paul named him President of the Catholic Biblical Federation. [3]
From 2004 to 2009, he was chairman of the Commission for Ecumenism and Dialogue of the Italian Episcopal Conference, and from 2009 until 2012 he was president of the Episcopal Conference of Umbria. As President of the Conference of Bishops of Umbria, he promoted the Solidarity Fund, an initiative that provides economic support for families particularly affected by the recent economic crisis.
He was ecclesiastical advisor of the Community of Sant'Egidio. [4]
In December 2010, the town of Narnia sold a castle to an Italian investment group whose head was also a financial officer of Paglia's diocese. A government investigation into the transaction found Paglia had not been involved. [5]
On 6 January 2011, he was named one of the first members, for a five-year renewable term, of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. [6]
He has been responsible for inter-religious dialogue and has opposed a cooling of relations with Jewish leaders. [7] He was also the postulator of the cause of beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero [8] [9] and wore a pectoral cross of Romero's that had been donated to him by Mgr. Ricardo Urioste, Romero's vicar general. [10]
On 26 June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named him President of the Pontifical Council for the Family and raised him to the rank of archbishop. [11]
In February 2013, he noted in an interview that homosexual couples should be safe from unjust discrimination in countries where homosexual acts are illegal. [12] He later said that he was not suggesting a change in church doctrine and that he was restating the official teaching of the Church. [13]
As the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, he was responsible for the Church's triennial World Meeting of Families. [14]
His tenure as head of the Pontifical Council on the Family ended when that department's functions were taken over by the new Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life on 1 September 2016.
On 15 August 2016, Pope Francis named him President of the Pontifical Academy for Life and Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, [15] [16] later renamed the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. [17] His appointment was part of Pope Francis' reform of the Roman Curia, timed to coincide with the erection of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life. Francis gave the Institute greater autonomy by setting aside the Institute's statute that made the grand chancellor of the Pontifical Lateran University its grand chancellor as well, [15] anticipating his revision of the Institute's statues released in September 2017. [17] He authored a mission statement urging Paglia to "aid families to live their vocation in today's world" by promoting "the perspective of mercy", knowing that "even in theological study, the pastoral perspective and attention to the wounds of humanity never fail". [18]
On 19 September 2016, he presided and delivered the homily at the funeral of former Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. A longtime friend of Ciampi, he described bringing Pope Francis' blessing to him on his deathbed. [19] [20]
In 2023, speaking at the Perugia Journalism Festival on "The last journey (towards the end of life)", Archbishop Paglia said the Catholic Church "does not have a package of prêt-à-porter, a pre-packaged truth as if it were a distributor of truth pills." He said how "Personally, I would not practice assisted suicide, but I understand that legal mediation can constitute the greatest common good concretely possible in the conditions in which we find ourselves." [21]
On Humane Vitae , he said how "the recognition of the unbreakable connection between married love and generation in Humanae Vitae does not mean that every marital act must necessarily bear fruit." He added: "We are facing epochal challenges. In the Sixties, the 'pill' was considered a total evil. Today, we face even greater dangers. All human life is at risk if we don't stop spiralling conflict, the arms race, if we don't stop destroying the environment". [22]
In 2024 under new guidelines that shifts toward a new openness with “aggressive treatment,” specifically the requirement to provide food and hydration to patients in a vegetative state. In section 13 of the volume, which deals with this issue of food and hydration, a reference is made to the recently published declaration of human dignity from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), Dignitas Infinita. [23]
The Roman Curia comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Roman Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use of in the exercise of his supreme pastoral office and universal mission in the world. It is at the service of the Pope, successor of Peter, and of the Bishops, successors of the Apostles, according to the modalities that are proper to the nature of each one, fulfilling their function with an evangelical spirit, working for the good and at the service of communion, unity and edification of the Universal Church and attending to the demands of the world in which the Church is called to fulfill its mission.
Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson is a Ghanaian prelate and cardinal of the Catholic Church who has served as chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences since 2022. He was president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 2009 to 2017 and the inaugural prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development from 2017 to 2021.
The Pontifical Council Cor Unum for Human and Christian Development was a pontifical council of the Roman Curia of the Catholic Church from 1971 to 2016.
The Pontifical Council for the Family was a pontifical council of the Curia of the Roman Catholic Church from 1981 to 2016. It was established by Pope John Paul II on 9 May 1981 with his motu proprio Familia a Deo Instituta, replacing the Committee for the Family that Pope Paul VI had established in 1973. The Council fostered "the pastoral care of families, protects their rights and dignity in the Church and in civil society, so that they may ever be more able to fulfill their duties."
A pontifical council was a mid-sized department or dicastery of the Roman Curia, the central organization responsible for assisting the Pope in the governance and oversight of the Catholic Church. Such a council had a cardinal or archbishop as its president and was restricted in its activities in comparison with the larger parts of the Curia.
Brian Farrell LC is an Irish Roman Catholic prelate who served as secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity from 2002 until 2024.
The John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences is a Roman Catholic pontifical institute of theological studies on marriage and family with affiliated campuses around the world.
The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America is a satellite session of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. Prior to September 2017, it was a satellite session of the central session at the Lateran University in Rome. The institute is devoted to the study of the truth about the human person in all of its dimensions: theological, philosophical, anthropological, and cosmological-scientific. The institute views that it centers its study of the person in the community that is the original cell of human society: marriage and family.
Stanisław Marian Ryłko is a Polish Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He held positions in the Roman Curia beginning in 1987 and was president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity from 2003 to 2016. He was made a cardinal in 2007. He has been Archpriest of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore since 28 December 2016.
Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer is a Spanish Jesuit, theologian and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. After a thirty-year career teaching theology, he joined the Roman Curia in 2004 as Secretary-General of the International Theological Commission. He was made an archbishop when named secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 2008 and served as its prefect from 2017 to 2023. He was raised to the rank of cardinal in 2018.
Salvatore "Rino" Fisichella is an Italian Catholic prelate with the rank of archbishop. He is the current pro-prefect for the New Evangelization section of the Dicastery for Evangelization. He was the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization from 2010-2022, and of the Pontifical Academy for Life from 2008-2010.
The Pontifical Academy for Life or Pontificia Accademia per la Vita is a Pontifical Academy of the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to promoting the Church's consistent life ethic. It also does related research on bioethics and Catholic moral theology. The academy was founded in 1994. Its members are selected by the pope and are to represent different branches of biomedical sciences to promote the Church's life ethic.
Giuseppe Versaldi is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who was the prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education from 2015 until that body was merged into the new Dicastery for Culture and Education in 2022. He served as president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See from 2011 to 2015. Before that he was Bishop of Alessandria. Pope Benedict XVI elevated him to the rank of cardinal on 18 February 2012.
The Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, also translated as Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, was a pontifical council of the Roman Curia whose creation was announced by Pope Benedict XVI at vespers on 28 June 2010, eve of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, to carry out the New Evangelization. On 5 June 2022, the department was merged into the Dicastery for Evangelization.
Ignacio Carrasco de Paula is a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church. He has been a bishop since 2010. He was the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life from 2010 to 2016.
Catholic laity are the ordinary members of the Catholic Church who are neither clergy nor recipients of Holy Orders or vowed to life in a religious order or congregation. Their mission, according to the Second Vatican Council, is to "sanctify the world".
Gualtiero Bassetti is an Italian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Perugia-Città della Pieve from 2009 to 2022. He has been a bishop since 1994 and was made a cardinal in 2014. He was president of the Italian Episcopal Conference from 2017 to 2022.
The Dicastery for Communication is a division (dicastery) of the Roman Curia with authority over all communication offices of the Holy See and the Vatican City State. Its various offices can be accessed through its website. These are the Pope's website and other offices such as Vatican News on internet, the Holy See Press Office, L'Osservatore Romano, Photograph Service, Vatican Radio, Vatican Press, and the Vatican Publishing House. The Pontifical Council for Social Communications has been subsumed into this new Dicastery.
Matteo Maria Zuppi is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been Archbishop of Bologna since 12 December 2015. He was previously an auxiliary bishop of Rome from 2012 to 2015.
The Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life is a dicastery of the Roman Curia. Pope Francis announced its creation on 15 August 2016, effective 1 September 2016. It took over the functions and responsibilities of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family. It has responsibility "for the promotion of the life and apostolate of the lay faithful, for the pastoral care of the family and its mission according to God's plan and for the protection and support of human life."