The most controversial document of this controversial pontificate, the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, is again at the center of a heated controversy at the Vatican. The matter at hand—which keeps popping up in different forms—is whether Pope Francis can eradicate the teaching legacy of Pope John Paul II, particularly on questions of human sexuality.
Oddly enough, this summer's dispute involves a Vatican body named after the canonized former pontiff: the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. Since its inception, the Institute (which was originally known by the slightly simpler name, the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family) had been an academic greenhouse nourishing the thought that St. John Paul had promoted: explaining the "culture of life" and the "theology of the body." All those arguments have been notably less prominent in the public ministry of Pope Francis.
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