Pope Francis' Curious New Appointments

Pope Francis had made two controversial appointments in recent weeks that seem to weaken his, once stalwart, stance on abortion.  According to “America”, a Jesuit magazine, convinced that poverty, inequality and economic systems are killing millions of people each year and threatening the dignity of many more people, Pope Francis appointed an economist to the Pontifical Academy for Life.  But the nomination of Mariana Mazzucato, a professor of the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, raised concern in some quarters because of her retweets or positive comments on tweets in June criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overrule Roe v. Wade and affirm that there is no constitutional right to abortion in the United States.  Mazzucato’s nomination, as well as the nomination of six other new members, was announced by the Vatican Oct. 15.  In the wake of the criticism, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the academy, told Catholic News Service Oct. 20 that all the members, including Mazzucato, “have at heart the value of human life in their area of expertise.”   A statement from the academy Oct. 19 said, “The Pontifical Academy for Life is a body of study and research. So, debate and dialogue take place among people from different backgrounds.” However, it added, when a document is prepared for publication by the academy it is first reviewed by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In addition, the statement noted, after academicians recommend new members and before they are appointed by the pope, they are vetted through consultation with the apostolic nuncio and the bishops’ conference of the countries where they live and work.

According to Breibart, Pope Francis has named liberal economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, among the world’s foremost proponents of population control and abortion, to the Pontifical Council of Social Sciences.  In his 2008 book Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, Sachs argued for legalizing abortion as a cost-effective way to eliminate “unwanted children” when contraception fails.

Abortion, he wrote, is a “lower-risk and lower-cost option” than having unwanted children born into the world.

The “legalization of abortion reduces a country’s total fertility rate significantly, by as much as half a child on average,” he wrote approvingly, while criticizing America’s “Mexico City Policy,” which denies funding to NGOs that perform or promote abortions.

Particularly in Africa, he argued, abortion should be legalized and family planning programs made to “cater to adolescents as well as to married households.”

Sachs was the lead architect of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals and appealed to countries to include “sexual and reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” in the scheme, after they were initially left out, which eventually led to their inclusion over and against objections from the Holy See and the United States.   When the Millennium Development Goals expired at the end of 2015, Sachs ushered in the Sustainable Development Goals. He is Special Advisor to the U.N. Secretary-General on the Sustainable Development Goals and previously advised both Ban Ki-moon and Kofi Annan on the MDGs.  The U.N. agenda encapsulates “17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets,” some of which directly contradict the Catholic Church’s core beliefs regarding human life.

This seems to be self-contradictory actions from Pope Francis.  During his religious life, Pope Francis is a vocal opponent of abortion, and recently insisted that abortion “is more than a problem, it is a murder,” adding that “whoever performs an abortion kills, any way you look at it.”

The Catholic Church considers the intentional killing of the unborn to be a very grave evil and a crime. “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion,” declares the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. ”Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law,” it adds.

Pope Francis has called the pro-abortion actions of President Biden an “incoherence”.  He has compared those who perform abortions to hitmen.  Yet, he is embracing two of the leading voices that promote abortion.  Admittedly, the Pope’s stance still has not changed.  However, his appointments force one to question his integrity and question if he is not being “incoherent”.