The president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Dominican religious Helen Alford, used the image of a “flirtation” this Wednesday to describe the initial phase of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman narrated in the Gospel of Saint John, during her intervention at the meeting organized in Rome for the tenth anniversary of Amoris laetitia.
Alford explained that she took this reading from one of her Dominican brothers, Father Michał Paluch, and presented it as a “usefully provocative” formulation. According to her, the dialogue begins with a man and a woman alone by the well and initially retains a certain ambiguity until Jesus leads the conversation toward the Samaritan woman’s personal situation.
The religious recalled the moment when Christ tells her: “Go, call your husband.” When the woman replies that she has no husband, Jesus points out that she has had five and that the man she is living with at that moment is not her husband.
From that episode, Alford presented the encounter with the Samaritan woman as a model for understanding different phases of evangelization: the initial awakening of desire, the confrontation with one’s own fragility, the openness to truth, and finally, the transmission to others of what has been received.
A reading presented before Leo XIV and episcopal leaders
The intervention took place in the Paul VI Hall, during the first day of the meeting “Ten Years after Amoris laetitia: Proclaiming the Gospel with Families Today,” convened with the participation of Leo XIV, the heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches, and the presidents of the Episcopal Conferences.
The Pope had previously opened the proceedings with a speech focused on the current challenges of family pastoral care, the growing distance between the experience of sexuality and the Christian vision of marriage, and the need to accompany situations of fragility without ceasing to proclaim “the fullness of the Gospel’s teaching on the family.”
Alford, who presides over the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, then developed her meditation on evangelization, family fragility, and the relationship between Amoris laetitia and Familiaris consortio.
From the Samaritan woman to the “law of gradualness”
The religious also linked her reading of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman to the so-called “law of gradualness,” one of the concepts present both in Familiaris consortio and in Amoris laetitia.
Alford recalled that this principle means that the person “knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good according to stages of growth,” but insisted that it should not be confused with a “gradualness of the law.”
According to her explanation, gradualness refers to the process by which a person advances toward moral good, not to a modification of the objective demands of the law according to particular circumstances.
The president of the Academy also maintained that both documents, separated by 35 years, share the concern for upholding the moral ideal while at the same time pastorally accompanying those who are not in a position to understand or fully live all its demands.
In that context, she stated that “the law is a gift from God that indicates the way” and raised the need to find ways to combine the objective demands of the law with the concrete reality of families.
Fragility, family, and evangelization
Alford also devoted part of her intervention to the tensions and crises that many families experience. According to her, these moments of fragility should not be interpreted solely as failures, but also as situations in which a path of conversion and trust in God can open up.
She also took up a reflection from Leo XIV according to which the beauty of the vocation to marriage must also be sought “through, with, and in its fragility.”
The Dominican concluded by encouraging the search for ways to encourage young people to take on “the great challenge of marriage and family life,” recognizing that this path will include difficulties, but also opportunities for spiritual growth.