Archbishop Renzo Pegoraro heads the Pontifical Academy for Life. Leo appointed him president barely three weeks after his election in May 2025, despite Pegoraro’s already public record of treating contraception and assisted suicide as morally negotiable under certain circumstances. Leo then promoted him again in March 2026, making him a bishop with the personal title of archbishop.
So this one belongs directly at Leo’s door.
On September 6, Avvenire asked Pegoraro about assisted-suicide legislation in Italy.
Pegoraro said Catholics might face an “imperfect law” permitting assisted suicide “to which it would nevertheless be moral to give one’s assent,” on the theory that still worse legislation might otherwise pass.
That is an astonishing thing for the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life to say.
Catholic moral theology already has a category for dealing with evil laws. Evangelium Vitae 73 allows a legislator, when an unjust regime is already established and cannot presently be abolished, to support a more restrictive measure for the sole purpose of limiting the harm.
That is very different from saying Catholics may morally assent to assisted suicide.
You may tolerate an evil you lack the power to eradicate while working to reduce it.
You may never turn the evil itself into a morally acceptable option.
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