[Catholic Caucus] There’s Yet Another Jesuit on Francis’s Team. At the Academy for Life They Know Him Well

L'Espresso ^ | November 4, 2022 | Sandro Magister

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[Catholic Caucus] There’s Yet Another Jesuit on Francis’s Team. At the Academy for Life They Know Him Well

To the squadron of Jesuits, including a good three cardinals, that Pope Francis has set up in command of the Church, there must be added at least one name that Settimo Cielo culpably omitted in the previous post.

It is a name not much in use. And one that nobody in recent days has brought into the swirl of criticisms that have struck the Pontifical Academy for Life, when instead the very one who bears that name was behind them.

The controversy broke out following the appointment, made by the pope on October 15, of new members of the Academy, some with a profile hardly in keeping, or not all, with the “pro vita” purpose of the Academy itself.

The most contested appointment has been that of the American economist Mariana Mazzucato, avowedly “pro choice” on the matter of abortion. But then also those of the other American, Alberto Dell’Oro, of Sheila Dinotshe Tlou of Botswana, and of the Argentine Jesuit Humberto Miguel Yáñez, professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University. The latter, who is a specialist in the pastoral care of the family, has been taken to task in particular for disobedience toward Paul VI’s encyclical “Humanae vitae,” which prohibits the use of artificial contraceptives.

The Pontifical Academy for Life, whose president is Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, a historical member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, reacted to the criticisms on October 19 with a self-justifying statement, under the banner of “dialogue” and “encounter” between different ideas, and then again on October 22 with another statement in which it was announced that Paglia, received in audience by Pope Francis on the same day, had been given his “complete approval.”

There is no doubt, in fact, that at the origin of those appointments were Paglia and the pope. Among other things, it was well known that Jorge Mario Bergoglio personally admires Mazzucato’s positions on economics.

But few know that at the Pontifical Academy for Life there is a Jesuit who for Pope Francis is of far greater clout and value than Paglia. His name is Carlo Casalone. He is 66 years old. From 1995 to 2008 he was editor of the magazine of the Milan Jesuits “Aggiornamenti Sociali,” and from 2008 to 2014 superior of the Province of Italy of the Society of Jesus. Today he teaches moral theology and bioethics at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and since 2013 he has been president of the Fondazione Carlo Maria Martini, named after the famous Jesuit cardinal who in his last book did not hesitate to accuse “Humanae vitae,” with its ban on artificial contraception, of having caused “serious damage” to the Church, when what was needed instead was “a new culture of tenderness and an approach to sexuality more free from prejudices.”

At the Pontifical Academy for Life, Casalone has the apparently marginal position of “associate” for the scientific section. But in fact he is much, much more. He is Francis’s man at in the Academy, it is he who, on the pope’s behalf, controls and directs everything and everyone, Paglia included.

The team play between Casalone and Bergoglio has been going on for years. On December 14 2017, for example, the same day on which the Italian parliament approved a law on living wills that was interpreted by all as a step toward euthanasia, there came out in “La Civiltà Cattolica” – the magazine of the Rome Jesuits whose drafts are examined by the pope before they are printed – an article dedicated to the “innovations” introduced by Francis on “living the moment of death with humanity and solidarity,” innovations also welcomed favorably by secular public opinion as a turning point for the pro-euthanasia Church.

And who was the author of that article? Carlo Casalone.

Getting back to the October 15 appointments to the Pontifical Academy for Life, it must be recognized that the idea of proposing Mariana Mazzucato’s to the pope was a stroke of genius that he could not resist.

Because for Bergoglio the anti-capitalist positions of this economics professor at University College London are the most exciting thing there is. And he has even said so in public, in a May 25 2022 speech to a delegation of the Global Solidarity Fund.

The brief official speech set aside, Francis spoke off the cuff like this:

“The economy must be converted, it must be converted now. We need to move from the free market economy to an economy shared by the people, to a communitarian economy.  And a good bit of work is being done on this with young economists, including women.  Among you, for example, in America, there is Mazzucato, who has made a real breakthrough in thinking about the economy, and other very talented women. We cannot live with an economic pattern that comes from the liberals and the Enlightenment. Nor can we live with an economic pattern that comes from communism. What is needed is a Christian economy, let’s put it like that. Seek out the new expressions of the economy at this time: I have mentioned Mazzucato, who is the daughter of migrants to the United States, but there are others.”

And with regard to “migrants,” in that same speech the pope said a few rather reckless things, once again speaking off the cuff:

“To understand migrants, we have to look at ourselves: most of us are children or grandchildren of migrants. Many! I am the son of migrants. One time someone in the United States said to me, ‘But no, we are not migrants, we are already rooted here!’ – ‘Don’t forget, you are a people of migrants, Irish and Italian migrants. The Irish brought you whiskey and the Italians brought you the mafia.’ Always keep sight of the roots…”

Bergoglio, Jesuit and pope. And is this too supposed to be his magisterium, backed up and fawned over by his squadron of confreres?

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