Pope Francis has asked the worldwide Church to use the next year to more deeply reflect on and implement his 2016 apostolic exhortation on marriage and the family
La Croix International | By Céline Hoyeau | France
The Catholic Church has now begun “The ‘Amoris Laetitia’ Year of the Family”, an initiative Pope Francis officially launched on March 19th, the Feast of St. Joseph, Universal Patron of the Church.
The special year, which will conclude on June 26, 2022 at the World Meeting of Families in Rome, is aimed at deepening and putting better into practice Amoris laetitia, the post-synodal exhortation on the family that the pope issued five years ago.
What is the status of this text?
Amoris laetitia is now the Church’s “roadmap” on family issues, says Oranne de Mautort, former director of the family office of the French Bishops’ Conference.
This lengthy papal document is the fruit of an unprecedented process of consultation and deliberation.
The pope sent a questionnaire to all the world’s episcopal conferences in 2013 in the run-up to two, back-to-back assemblies of the Synod of Bishops in 2014 that looked at issues relating to today’s family.
Bishops and experts from around the globe used the two assemblies to discern the issues brought forward by the baptized faithful, theologians and pastors.
Francis took those deliberations as the basis for writing the 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation.Amoris laetitia is notable for its very personal style, which combines a pastoral closeness and magisterial gravity.
It does not establish new general norms applicable to all, but encourages discernment. Its guidance must be translated at the local level, seeking “solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its traditions and local needs” (AL 3).
How is it structured?
The first three chapters define the foundations for dealing with family issues.
First, there is the Word of God (Chapter I), which “is not a series of abstract ideas but rather a source of comfort and companionship” (AL 22).
Second, there are the situations that affect today’s families (Chapter II), such as the phenomenon of migration, the lack of housing, gender issues, the impact of biotechnology on procreation and so forth.
And third, there is the Church’s teachings on marriage and the family (Chapter III). The Jesuit pope then outlines his vision of Christian love in two central chapters on marriage and its fruitfulness (Chapter IV), and which can take many forms (Chapter V).
The three chapters that follow are devoted to the application of this vision through several pastoral questions: the preparation of engaged couples for married life and the accompaniment of the first years, to which the pope recommends giving new importance (Chapter VI) the education of children (Chapter VII) and complex situations known as “irregular” (Chapter VIII, “Accompanying, discerning and integrating weakness”).
The last chapter (IX) is devoted to conjugal and family spirituality.
What is its purpose?
Amoris laetitia has a double and complementary aim.
On the one hand, it seeks to promote the Christian ideal of marriage, the beauty of which the text never ceases to emphasize. On the other hand, it aims at encouraging mercy.
This is the key word of the exhortation, especially regarding the accompaniment and integration of diverse family situations.
Francis wants the Church to take into account the new context and great diversity of today’s families. The exhortation encourages ways to reach them where they are, including in their difficulties, their sufferings and trials.
The pope is trying to address “real families” and “keep firmly grounded in reality” (AL 6), avoiding proposing “far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage”.
But this does not mean selling out the demands of the Gospel, nor does it mean to “desist from proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its grandeur” (AL 307).
Francis reminds us that marriage is above all a journey of human and spiritual growth, and that is never fully completed.”We are still very much influenced by a representation of marriage as a juridical status, a state of life fixed once and for all and which imposes on the spouses rules received from outside,” points out Alain Thomasset and Oranne de Mautort, Paris-based professors of moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology (Centre Sèvres) and the Institut Catholique.”Marriage needs to be better understood as an ethical commitment,” the theologians point out.”It is a vocation that requires the effort of the will, patience and collaboration with grace received; in short, it is the development of a work of freedom that is risky and fallible,” they say.
The apostolic exhortation recognizes this.
What is new about this text?
Amoris laetitia invites Catholics to adopt a “new pastoral style”.
“The Bible tells us of God’s presence alongside families in complicated situations. Amoris laetitia is faithful to this path of incarnation,” explains Oranne de Mautort.
“Following the example of Christ, who looked with love and tenderness on those he met, we begin by looking not at what is lacking in order to follow the Christian ideal of marriage, but first at what is good in people’s lives, even in imperfect situations, because these positive elements are, precisely, signs of the grace of God already at work,” the theologian notes.
This is the law of gradualness, which John Paul II introduced in his 1981 apostolic exhortation, Familiaris consortio.Pope Francis has updated this in his own exhortation by inviting us to focus our attention not on the deviation from the norm, but on the person who is on the way to making progress.
This is what the early Christian writers called “divine pedagogy”.
This pastoral style aims at avoiding the two extremes of rigorism and laxism.”While it is fair to consider that there are objectively bad acts, sinful situations, it is not possible to make a global judgment a priori on people,” says Jesuit Father Patrick Langue.
Similarly, the pope also asks us not to be satisfied with an external examination or the objective situation, but to exercise discernment within ourselves.Amoris laetitia thus re-emphasizes the role of conscience and discernment, in which the moral law and the Church’s guidance retain their place.In light of this, dioceses in France and other parts of the world have begun looking for ways to accompany people as they try to come to terms with their own family situations.
The goal is to form consciences with the help of the Word of God and dialogue with the pastor of the community so that all can discern how best they can be part of the Church’s life.
Read more at: https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/rediscovering-amoris-laetitia-during-the-family-year/13999
