PRESIDENT OF VATICAN ACADEMY ATTACKS CLIMATE CHANGE SKEPTIC

In a rare display of diplomatic indecorum, Margaret Archer, the president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, has lashed out at the author of a recent essay, accusing him of hate speech and moral depravity for questioning the Academy’s position on climate change.

Margaret Archer, a 72-year-old former sociology lecturer at the University of Warwick, is the second-highest ranking woman in the Vatican. She was personally chosen by Bishop Sanchez Sorondo last year to replace the highly respected Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon as President of the Academy. Glendon is considered by many to be a pro-life hero and, in a widely publicized move in 2009, turned down the Laetare Medal at the University of Notre Dame, after learning that she would be sharing the stage with President Barack Obama, who supports abortion on demand.

Archer took great offense at Gennarini’s column about his exchange with Bishop Sanchez. In language resembling that used by liberal lobbies, she called it “a hate message” despite the fact that nothing about the piece expressed any sort of animosity toward Sanchez and instead merely questioned the Academy’s move to invite advocates of abortion and population control to speak at a high-profile Vatican event.

Archer, in turn, questioned Gennarini’s credentials while holding up her own. She writes, “We are respected academics who take full responsibility for our actions and have, according to our Statutes, the duty and privilege of advising the Church on matters of Social Doctrine and its application. I am appointed by the Pope and responsible directly to him. I’m afraid that leaves you and your cohort out in the cold.”

Parroting the same charges leveled by Bishop Sanchez Sorondo, she queries, “which lobbyists meet your salary bill?” Without ever answering Gennarini’s central thesis, Archer charges him with having “a minimalistic version of the [Catholic] Creed, consisting of a single item: ‘We believe in the ethical depravity of abortion.’”

Last month, Stefano Gennarini, the director of legal studies at the New York and Washington DC-based Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), published a column about a Vatican-sponsored conference concerning global warming, questioning why vocal proponents of abortion and population control had been invited to offer advice to the Holy See.

Gennarini suggested that inviting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, and former Senator Tim Wirth, all of whom hold moral positions at variance …