The appointment of the present rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris as the longer term president of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute completes the overhaul of a physique that’s now purported to unfold the imaginative and prescient of marriage and the household elaborated within the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia.
In Rome, there’s a saying {that a} harsh winter can generally result in brief circuits: thus, it isn’t by the Press Room of the Holy See, however by the Italian information company Ansa that the identify of the longer term President of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute was delivered to the eye of the general public on March 8, 2021.
The affirmation was fast to return by the Twitter account of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Its president, Bishop Vincenzo Paglia, a figurehead of progressivism, can also be Grand Chancellor of the John Paul II Institute. That very same day, he addressed a message of welcome to Msgr. Philippe Bordeyne – Msgr. doesn’t imply episcopate right here, however is an honorary title.
A 61-year-old French priest, Msgr. Bordeyne graduated from HEC, London Enterprise College, and New York College earlier than coming into theological research and being ordained a priest in 1988.
In 2011, he was appointed rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris (ICP) by Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, a place he ought to maintain till August 31, 2021, earlier than becoming a member of the Everlasting Metropolis within the following September.
Msgr. Bordeyne’s alternative is in keeping with the overhaul of the John Paul II Institute desired by Pope Francis within the wake of the 2015 Synod on the Household.
At the moment, the Argentine pontiff perceived that the Pontifical Institute devoted to the theology of the Polish Pope—whom he nonetheless “canonized”—constituted an impediment to the dissemination of his new conception of marriage, expressed by the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia, from which a “renewed” Church is meant to be born, able to adapting to the world and to its perpetual evolution.
On the finish of July 2019, new statutes had been imposed on the Institute, and within the course of, the ax fell on the heads of the school: exit the “theology of the physique” of John Paul II, which was already greater than questionable.
And changed by an strategy to morality primarily based on the social sciences, which as everybody is aware of are contingent sciences, completely versatile with regard to conditions till now have been thought-about as irregular, like “divorced and remarried” {couples}.
The selection of Msgr. Bordeyne is in keeping with this logic: an appointed professional on the 2015 synod on the household, the present rector of the ICP advocates, in keeping with the present Roman pontiff, “the broad view of households of their range,” as he defined in 2017 on the microphone of Radio Notre-Dame.
The longer term president of the John Paul II Institute, who envisaged this unprecedented entry within the observe of the Church, then specified, “the door can open in direction of entry to the sacraments (“remarried divorcees’), in discretion, throughout a pilgrimage, or the celebration of a household occasion ”.
The time for normalization has due to this fact sounded for the Pontifical Institute of Theology, however it isn’t with out penalties: some programs have misplaced 90% of their college students, whereas others have been purely and easily abolished, for lack of registrations.
Amoris Laetitia’s ambiguities don’t appear to be profitable amongst a younger era, extra in quest of values and sound ideas than their elders: on this context, it isn’t sure that Msgr. Bordeyne’s abilities as a supervisor are sufficient to show the tide.