The Confessions of Monsignor Paglia and the Crossroads for Moral Catholic Theology. by Livio Melina, June, 19th, 2026
Professor Livio Melina has just published a response in Catholic World Report to the recent statements of Monsignor Paglia concerning the role of natural law in contemporary moral debates on family and sexuality, as well as what Melina sees as an attempt to overturn the foundational principles of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.
In that article (read here), Livio Melina presents Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia and Pope John Paul II as representatives of two distinct approaches within contemporary Catholic moral theology. Melina argues that Paglia’s recent remarks reveal a significant rethinking of the role of natural law, placing greater emphasis on historical circumstances, lived experience, and pastoral discernment. At the same time, Melina rejects the common caricature according to which the classical natural law tradition is merely a system of abstract and rigid principles detached from concrete human situations. Drawing on the moral theology of St. John Paul II and the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, Melina maintains that authentic moral reasoning must attend both to objective moral truth and to the particular circumstances in which persons act, without reducing either to the other. 

Melina further recalls the unique role played by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, which for decades served as one of the world's leading centres for research in moral theology, philosophical anthropology, marriage, family studies, and natural law. In his view, the Institute developed a sophisticated account of human action that integrated metaphysics, virtue ethics, personalism, and pastoral concerns, rather than a merely legalistic or deductive morality. 

The central question is whether natural law should continue to be understood as an objective and intelligible order grounded in human nature, while remaining attentive to the concrete realities of human life, or whether it should be substantially reinterpreted through a more historical and experiential framework. 

For Melina, the answer to this question will significantly shape the future direction of Catholic moral theology.

Closely related to the Melina article, be sure to read this one as well: Whatever Happened to Natural Law? by Richard A. Spinello, published in The Catholic Thing, Friday, June 19, 2026