By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing - The Catholic world was surprised – though not entirely so – last week when the previously announced “refounding” of the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family resulted in the firing of two prominent longtime professors and the “suspension” – for the time being, we may hope – of all faculty. All this in service of what was reported as Pope Francis’ intention to “broaden its academic curriculum, from a focus on the theology of marriage and the family to an approach that will also include the study of the family from the perspective of the social sciences.”