Pope Leo XIV has asked pastors to accompany with closeness, patience, and mercy the families who are going through situations of fragility, while also reminding them of their responsibility to “proclaim the beauty of God’s plan for marriage and the family” and to announce “the fullness of the Gospel’s teaching on the family.”
The Pope spoke these words on October 7, during the meeting with the heads of the Eastern Churches and the presidents of the Episcopal Conferences convened in the Paul VI Hall on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Amoris laetitia.
In his address, Pope Leo XIV noted that “in many contexts” there is “an ever-greater distance between the ways in which sex and intimacy are lived, and the Christian vision of marriage.” He also warned that many young people continue to seek “love, fidelity, and a sense of belonging,” although they find it difficult to accept that “a lifelong commitment” is the necessary condition for attaining what they desire.
The Pontiff called for facing these issues “with courage” and paying special attention to those marked by “limitations, wounds, and apparent failure.” At the same time, he posed a question to the participants that he placed at the center of pastoral reflection: “How can we announce to them the fullness of the Gospel’s teaching on the family?”
Ten years after Amoris laetitia:
Proclaiming the Gospel to today’s families
OPENING ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV
My dear brothers in the episcopate,
dear families,
dear brothers and sisters:
I wanted to convene this meeting ten years after the publication of Amoris laetitia, and I thank you for having organized your commitments so that we could spend these days together. I wholeheartedly thank the married couples and all those who have come to share testimonies of their lives in Christ and who will take part in our conversations, as well as the experts and moderators.
Allow me to begin by recalling the long and fruitful synodal and missionary journey that the Church has undertaken in relation to marriage and the family, a journey we are called to continue.
The family has always held an important place in the pastoral concern of the Successor of Peter and of the bishops who assist him through their participation in the Synod of Bishops. The 1980 Synod took up a desire already expressed by Pope John Paul I during his brief pontificate, which ultimately led to the apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio of Saint John Paul II.
At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis once again placed the family at the center of a synodal process, recognizing the need to continue the Church’s discernment in the face of the profound changes affecting an area so closely linked to its mission in today’s world. That journey led, ten years ago, to the apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia.
In this sense, the Church has followed the path indicated by the Second Vatican Council. When the Council Fathers placed the dignity of marriage and the family at the beginning of the second part of Gaudium et spes, they recognized that family life offers a privileged point of access to the great cultural, economic, social, and political questions of our time, including the work of promoting peace among peoples. The interdependence of these questions has become even more evident today, always in the light of the Word of God: “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife” (Mk 10:6-7). The family remains key to an approach that holds together the local and the global, guided by the search for a universal fraternity in Christ that the Gospel calls us to build with all. This trajectory of more than half a century gives our meeting a special responsibility as pastors, as the synodal vocation of the whole Church continues to unfold.
Within this history, Amoris laetitia marked an important stage, and the ten years since its publication have become part of the life of our particular Churches. During this time, the Apostolic Exhortation has been received in different cultures and pastoral contexts, has accompanied the concrete life of families, and has inspired initiatives and processes.
These are the ten years that have passed, and we present them before the Lord Jesus. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, observing attentively what has happened can help us recognize more deeply what Christ has been teaching his Church throughout these years.
The Acts of the Apostles offer us a beautiful image of what we are about to do. At the end of their missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas gathered the Church and “related all that God had done with them” (Acts 14:27). Later, as they traveled to Jerusalem, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, recounting what had happened on the mission, and their account filled the brothers and sisters with great joy. Upon arriving in Jerusalem, they were received by the Church, the apostles, and the presbyters, and once again “they recounted all that God had done with them” (15:4).
There is something of this movement in our own gathering. As I have already said, the Church has dedicated these ten years to welcoming Amoris laetitia and to accompanying families in very diverse circumstances.
We also bring stories of what God has done among us. They are stories gathered along the path of mission: stories of conversion, of unexpected fruits, and of the relationships God has woven within families while our communities have striven to accompany them, together with the difficulties we have faced, the questions that have arisen, and what we have learned along the way. They give us confidence as we begin our work together. Let us present them before the Lord and share them with one another, seeking to recognize what God has been stirring among us and where his Spirit is guiding the Church today.
In my message of March 19, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Amoris laetitia, I recalled that “in fact, there are places and circumstances in which the Church ‘can only become the salt of the earth’ through the lay faithful and, in particular, through families.” Indeed, Amoris laetitia invites us to take this vocation and responsibility seriously. Families themselves participate in the Church’s mission in the day-to-day of their lives, through love and fidelity, care and forgiveness, the education of children, their efforts to hand on the faith, attention to the elderly and the most vulnerable, and the many ways they serve their communities and society. Through all these ways, families bear witness to the Gospel and contribute to the life and mission of the Church.
As pastors, we have received the responsibility, in season and out of season, to proclaim the beauty of God’s plan for marriage and the family, as well as his call to love and tenderness. This challenges us to accompany people in their effort to live their vocation in the concrete circumstances of their lives.
This ministry also places us in a school of listening. The wisdom of the People of God reaches us through our common faith, which enlightens all families, including situations marked by difficulties, loneliness, and at times even apparent failure. The Lord himself teaches us with patience when we take the time to listen, and surely we have much to learn from families.
Their lives also raise questions that deserve to be faced with courage. In many contexts, an ever-greater distance has emerged between the ways in which sex and intimacy are lived, and the Christian vision of marriage. Young people continue to long for love, fidelity, and a sense of belonging; however, many find it difficult to accept how that vision of love can take shape in their own lives or to believe that a lifelong commitment is the necessary condition for attaining what they desire. Economic insecurity, migration, violence, loneliness, and other forms of emotional fragility also influence the decisions people make and the possibilities they can imagine for their future.
These realities raise a series of questions that we must face with courage. What are people really seeking behind these cultural changes? What do their joys and hopes, their sorrows and anxieties reveal to us? In what aspects do our pastoral language and practices succeed in opening a path, and in which do they fail to reach the hearts of people or support their efforts to do good? What does the lived experience of families teach us, an experience from which we have not yet fully learned? What can we offer as formation for a healthy and holy family life? In particular, what can we learn from parents who seek to accompany their children and young people in these contexts?
Fragility deserves special attention, since it can profoundly influence the way people see themselves, their future, and even their relationship with God and the Church. The experience of fragility leads us to ask whether we are able to remain united when life no longer corresponds to what we had expected, and whether we can recognize the work of grace even in situations marked by limitations, wounds, and apparent failure.
In this sense as well, the experience of families has something to teach us all, since fragility is part of our common human condition and, therefore, also of the life of the Church. We all know the gap that exists between the good we desire and what we are capable of living. We need grace, forgiveness, and new beginnings to fulfill God’s will, and we learn that fidelity is itself a grace to be received and a path to be renewed little by little, often through trials. Recognizing this shared challenge should mark the way we accompany one another in the Church. What kind of Church, then, do people find precisely when they feel most fragile? Do our communities help them discover that they still have a place, a responsibility, and gifts to offer? Can the truth we proclaim be manifested through the patience, closeness, and mercy of our pastoral presence? How can we announce to them the fullness of the Gospel’s teaching on the family?
During these days, I invite you to give these questions all the importance they deserve. The Holy Spirit often speaks through the very situations that challenge us, and enlightens us so that we may discover how God’s mercy and the saving grace of Christ can reach our families today, especially in their weakness and resilience, in their hopes and disappointments, in their longing for communion and in their search for meaning. Our task, therefore, is not only to interpret these realities, but to let them question us and motivate our pastoral responsibility, so that the Church may find renewed ways of proclaiming the Gospel, offering sacramental grace, accompanying families, and making visible the tenderness with which Christ continues to walk among his people.
May the dialogue among us be marked by the evangelical freedom we see in the Acts of the Apostles. We can share what has filled us with joy in our Churches, the challenges we have faced, and the questions that have arisen with greater clarity through experience. Moreover, the diversity of the situations from which we come can become a gift for the discernment of the whole Church.
The Thematic Framework prepared for this meeting is intended to keep before us the breadth of Amoris laetitia and to establish a dialogue between the Apostolic Exhortation and what our Churches have lived during these last ten years. Let us be inspired by the richness of Christ’s word and the tradition of the Church. The program has been made public so that the People of God may accompany our work through prayer and synodal reflection.
For our part, listening to one another, letting what we hear resonate within us, and remaining attentive to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit can awaken the pastoral creativity we need in the face of new questions.
That is why our retreat together this afternoon and the prayer with which we begin each day constitute the heart of our work. I ask the Lord to help us gather the fruits that Amoris laetitia has produced in our local Churches, so that they may nourish the whole Church.
I hope that, through the many stories you bring from your Churches and from the different cultural contexts, a shared narrative of these ten years may gradually take shape, marked by joy and hope, and that it may allow us to face with honesty the trials and difficulties that still lie ahead. This will nourish the pastoral discernment of the episcopal conferences and of the hierarchical structures of the Eastern Churches. It will also help the local Churches to recognize new paths and to involve more deeply all the baptized in the Church’s synodal journey. I also ask that we all maintain the discretion and confidentiality required by this time of listening and discernment.
May the Lord grant us the freedom to listen to one another, the wisdom to recognize his work among his people, and the courage to follow him wherever he leads us, so that, each day, the Gospel may become ever more fully good news for families throughout the world. Thank you.