Msgr. Renzo Pegoraro by Pontifical Academy Life (@PontAcadLife) / X
Pope Leo XIV this week appointed Monsignor Renzo Pegoraro — longtime chancellor of the Pontifical Academy for Life involved in a controversy over his 2022 comment reportedly suggesting contraception could be permissible in certain cases — as the academy’s new president.
Msgr. Pegoraro succeeds Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who became president in 2016. Msgr. Pegoraro studied in Padua and Rome, where he obtained a licentiate in moral theology and a diploma in advanced bioethics, according to the Academy for Life website. He was president of the European Association of Centers of Medical Ethics from 2010 to 2013, and he has served as a bioethics lecturer at the Theological Faculty of Trivento.
Pope John Paul II established the Pontifical Academy for Life in 1994, charging it with the task of “defense and promotion of the value of human life and of the dignity of the person,” according to its Vatican profile. Its main actions are to study problems related to promoting and defending human life; assist, through Catholic initiatives, the pro-life formation of persons; and inform Church leaders, the media, other organizations, and civil society in the findings of its research.
In a statement posted to the Academy’s website, Msgr. Pegoraro thanked Pope Leo for his new appointment.
“The work carried out over these past years alongside H.E. Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia and previously with H.E. Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula has been both fascinating and stimulating, in line with the operational and thematic guidelines of the late Pope Francis,” he added.
Msgr. Pegoraro’s appointment has raised reactions of concern among Catholics amid reports of controversial comments he made in 2022 about assisted suicide and contraception.
According to a December 2022 article in The Wall Street Journal, Msgr. Pegoraro suggested that the use of contraception might be morally permissible in a certain case.
In November 2022, about 24 Catholic theologians and others held a conference in Rome in efforts to defend and explain Church teaching that contraception is a grave evil, articulated strongly in St. Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae. The conference came together amid debate in recent years among Catholic theologians on the issue and other topics such as divorce, according to the Journal.
The outlet did not specify if Msgr. Pegoraro attended the conference, but did quote him commenting to article author Francis Rocca on the topic at hand:
“The letter of the law can change, but not to invalidate it but rather to deepen its meaning and promote the values at stake,” said Msgr. Renzo Pegoraro, rector of the Pontifical Academy for Life. The rule against contraception “signals values that must be preserved in married life—in particular the sense of sexuality and the transmission of life—but it is also true that other values worth protecting may be present in the situation that the family is experiencing.”
For instance, Msgr. Pegoraro said, contraception might be permissible “in the case of a conflict between the need to avoid pregnancy for medical reasons and the preservation of a couple’s sex life.”
Following his appointment as president of the academy, Rocca, now a Vatican EWTN editor, posted to his X account recalling this interview. Providing further context to the exchange, Rocca also shared a link to an accessible version of the full 2022 Wall Street Journal article.
Replying on X to a report of Msgr. Pegoraro’s contraception and assisted suicide comments, New York-based Catholic bioethicist Charlie Camosy called for prayers for the academy’s new president, writing: “Let us pray for a changed mind and heart in such an important leader.”
Msgr. Pegoraro was also involved in a controversial debate relating to assisted suicide, euthanasia, and the lesser of two evils in 2022, when he weighed in as the Italian parliament considered legalizing assisted suicide. According to a February 2022 La Croix International article, the parliament was caught between either legalizing assisted suicide or abolishing a prohibition on “murder of a consenting person” in such a way that would open the door to euthanasia. Msgr. Pegoraro at the time said that neither option “represents the Catholic position.”
However, a law will be passed regardless, he said, continuing, “And of the two possibilities, assisted suicide is the one that most restricts abuses because it would be accompanied by four strict conditions: the person asking for help must be conscious and able to express it freely, have an irreversible illness, experience unbearable suffering and depend on life-sustaining treatment such as a respirator.”
La Croix posed the question of whether the Church is opting for the lesser of two evils.
Msgr. Pegoraro commented, “Rather, to make good of the better one. It is a question of seeing which law can limit evil.”
He emphasized that the Church condemns both assisted suicide and euthanasia. He said that the main question at hand in this situation, however, “is about knowing how the Church can participate in the discussion in a pluralist society.”
“Obviously, the ideal would be that assisted suicide and euthanasia be prohibited,” he said, “But I believe that today we must agree to discuss laws that we know will differ from the Church’s morality.”
According to the Academy for Life article announcing Msgr. Pegoraro’s new appointment as president, he said he plans to “continue working along the lines of the themes and methodology developed in recent years, enhancing the specific expertise of our broad and distinguished international and interreligious group of Academicians.”
“I particularly highlight the themes of Global Bioethics, dialogue with scientific disciplines through the transdisciplinary approach promoted by Pope Francis, artificial intelligence and biotechnologies, and the promotion of respect for and the dignity of human life in all its stages,” he said. “It will also be important to further enhance the work of the entire staff at the Central Headquarters, now located in the Vatican’s San Callisto complex.”
Palazzo San Callisto is a Vatican-owned property in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood and an extraterritorial property of the Holy See that was established by the 1929 Lateran Treaty between the Vatican and Italy. Located near the Basilica of Santa Maria, the Palazzo San Callisto houses several key institutions of the Roman Curia and international Catholic organizations and includes offices, chapels, and conference facilities.