Taking Archbishop Paglia at His Word, by John M. Grondelski 

John M. Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) is a former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. All views expressed herein are his own.

The Pontifical Academy for Life spent April 24 channeling its inner tailor: it assured us that, though we had seen the naked text of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia’s remarks on assisted suicide, His Grace really was attired in the finest and fullest of ecclesiastical garb.

No, you didn’t see a prelate talking explicitly about moral absolutes (except, perhaps, in relation to the death penalty). No, you didn’t see a prelate running down moral principles as “ready-to-wear,” said his ecclesiastical tailors, busily weaving a new narrative. No, you didn’t hear about “accompaniment” without much specificity about what that means.

All you heard was a “juridical mediation,” a kind of out loud thought experiment about how to think about assisted suicide in a peculiarly Italian civil context. …

[Photo Credit: Catholic News Agency]

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