Scholar charges Vatican official with moral relativism
June 12, 2009
An influential Catholic scholar has lashed out at Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, charging that the Italian prelate provided a justification for abortion with a surprising article in L'Osservatore Romano scolding Brazilian bishops for their treatment of a controversial case there. Michel Schooyans-- a former philosophy professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences-- offered an argument based on "situational morality," which could be used to justify direct abortion. "Here we have total relativism," he said.
Schooyans called attention to the fact that in defending his column against critics, Archbishop Fisichella said that it was "written on request." Schooyans countered: "At the request of whom? It is being insinuated in some quarters that it was written at the request of the office of the Secretary of State. This is the crucial question.”
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