The Joy of Love in Marriage and Family

This column will present brief summaries of important documents. We start with “Amoris Laetitia” (The Joy of Love), Pope Francis’s recent encyclical on marriage and family. The summary is by Fr K. J. Louis SDB

Amoris Laetitia offers a comprehensive and eloquent presentation of the Catholic vision of marriage and family, with an intense dose of pastoral concern. The concern of Pope Francis for married couples and families and his anxiety over young people not being given a formation in the true Christian understanding of marriage is palpable on every page. He does not give any new teachings; instead, he places a strong emphasis on not judging others and on looking for ways to welcome everyone to their rightful place in the Church, no matter what his or her situation. Pope Francis looks at the real life situations of married couples. He acknowledges that there are certain situations that are complex and do not admit of a facile solution. He offers to those in such situations the balm of compassionate pastoral care to heal their wounds, to help them form correct consciences and to accompany them to full integration in the life of the Church. A challenging teaching, indeed!

Pope Francis wants the truths regarding marriage, sexuality, and family to be unambiguously declared and taught, but at the same time he also wants the Church’s ministers to reach out in mercy and compassion to those who struggle to live those truths in their lives.

What is new in Amoris Laetitia is its vigorously pastoral approach, which can be summarised in the following nine statements.

1. Understand families and individuals in their complexity. When faced with difficult situations and “wounded families,” pastors must exercise careful discernment of situations (79). They are to “avoid judgements that do not take into account the complexity of various situations” (79, 296). The church needs to meet people where they are. People should not be “pigeonholed or fit into overly rigid classifications leaving no room for personal and pastoral discernment” (298). And the church cannot apply moral laws as if they were “stones to throw at people’s lives” (305). “The way of the Church is not to condemn anyone for ever; it is to pour out the balm of God’s mercy on all those who ask for it with a sincere heart” (296). Overall, he calls for an approach of understanding, compassion and accompaniment.
2. The role of conscience is paramount in moral decision making. “Individual conscience needs to be better incorporated into the Church’s praxis in certain situations which do not objectively embody our understanding of marriage” (303). The Church has been “called to form consciences, not to replace them” (37). Conscience “can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal” (303). Pastors, therefore, need to help people not simply to follow rules, but to practice “discernment” (304), a word that implies prayerful decision making.
3. Pastoral mercy for the divorced. Divorced and remarried Catholics need to be more fully integrated into the church. How? By looking at the specifics of their situation, by remembering “mitigating factors,” by counselling them in the “internal forum,” and by respecting that the final decision about the degree of participation in the church is left to a person’s conscience (305, 300). The reception of Communion is not explicitly mentioned here, but that is a traditional aspect of “participation” in church life. Divorced and remarried couples should be made to feel part of the church. “They are not excommunicated and should not be treated as such, since they remain part of the ecclesial community” (243).
4. Learn to put up with imperfections. All members of the family need to be encouraged to live good Christian lives. Much of Amoris Laetitia consists of reflections on the Gospels and church teaching on love, the family and children. But it also includes a great deal of practical advice from the pope. Pope Francis reminds married couples that a good marriage is a “dynamic process” and that each side has to put up with imperfections. “Love does not have to be perfect for us to value it” (122, 113).
5. Mitigating factors exist. “The Church possesses a solid body of reflection concerning mitigating factors and situations. Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace” (301). Other people in “irregular situations,” or non-traditional families, like single mothers, need to be offered “understanding, comfort and acceptance rather than imposing straightaway a set of rules” (49). When dealing with these cases, the church cannot simply apply moral laws, “as if they were stones to throw at a person’s lives” (305).
6. Not every question can be settled by the magisterium. “Cultures are in fact quite diverse and every general principle… needs to be inculturated, if it is to be respected and applied” (3). What might work in one place may not work in another. The pope is not only speaking in terms of individuals, but geographically as well. “Each country or region…can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs” (3). What makes sense pastorally in one country may even seem out of place in another. “Not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium” (3).
7. Traditional teachings on marriage are affirmed. Marriage is between one man and one woman and is indissoluble. “The indissolubility of marriage—‘what God has joined together, let no man put asunder’ (Mt 19:6) —should not be viewed as a ‘yoke’ imposed on humanity, but as a ‘gift’ granted to those who are joined in marriage…” (62). Same-sex marriage is not considered marriage. At the same time, at times the church has placed before people an “almost artificial theological ideal of marriage far removed from people’s everyday lives” (36). “There is no need to lay upon two limited persons the tremendous burden of having to reproduce perfectly the union existing between Christ and his Church” (122). Seminarians and priests need to be better trained to understand the complexities of people’s married lives. “Ordained ministers often lack the training needed to deal with the complex problems currently facing families” (202).
8. Yes to sex education. Children must be educated in sex and sexuality. In a culture that often commodifies and cheapens sexual expression, children need to understand sex within the “broader framework of an education for love and mutual self-giving” (280). Sadly, the body is often seen as simply “an object to be used” (153). Sex always has to be understood as being open to the gift of new life.
9. Gay men and women should be respected. While same-sex marriage is not permitted, the pope says that he wants to reaffirm “before all else” that the homosexual person needs to be “respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, and ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression or violence.” Families with LGBT members should be given “respectful pastoral guidance so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives” (250).

Conclusion: Everyone to experience the joy of love. The Church must help families of every sort, and people in every state of life, to know that, even in their imperfections, they are loved by God. Likewise, pastors must work to make people feel welcome in the church. Amoris Laetitia offers the vision of a pastoral and merciful church that encourages people to experience the “joy of love.” The family is an absolutely essential part of the church, because after all, the church is a “family of families” (80) and “the joy of love experience by families is also the joy of the Church” (1).

– Father K.J. Louis SDB is a well-known author, editor and preacher. Among his books is: Communication for Pastoral Leadership: Basics of Social Communication, Volume 1 of a 3-volume work on Social Communication for seminarians, religious and priests.

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