Pope Leo XIV has resumed this Wednesday, October 21, the general audiences in St. Peter’s Square following the surgery he recently underwent. Before the faithful and pilgrims gathered in the Vatican, the Pontiff began his address with words of gratitude for the prayers received during his recovery: “The first thing I want to say to you is: thank you! Thank you for the support of your prayers. Thanks be to God for his generosity.”
During the audience, Leo XIV continued his cycle of catechesis on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, dedicating his reflection to the teaching of the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes on marriage and the family. The Pope recalled the importance of marital fidelity and indissolubility, the defense of life from conception, and society’s responsibility in protecting the family.
General Audience of Pope Leo XIV
St. Peter’s Square, Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Catechesis. The Documents of the Second Vatican Council. IV. Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes. 6. The Commitment to the Family in Today’s Society (GS, 47-52)
Reading: Eph 5:31-33
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning and welcome!
The first thing I want to say to you is: thank you! Thank you for the support of your prayers. Thanks be to God for his generosity. Let us all renew our trust in the goodness and mercy of God.
The pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes (GS) of the Second Vatican Council, after having explained in its first part the dignity of the person and his or her vocation in the world, addresses in its second part, “in the light of the Gospel and of human experience,” some of the most urgent contemporary problems (cf. GS, 46). First of all, attention is focused on marriage and the family, with the conviction that “the well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the prosperity of the conjugal and family community” (GS, 47).
To this end, the constitution does not merely reiterate the values and ends of marriage, but proposes a renewed understanding of it as an “intimate community of conjugal life and love” (GS, 48). Integrating the juridical dimension of marriage as a contract, it recognizes the foundation of this union in the “conjugal covenant,” understood as “the human act by which spouses give and receive each other mutually” (ibid.). The mutual self-giving of man and woman, “so that they are no longer two, but one flesh” (Mt 19:6), motivates the demand for “complete fidelity” and “indissoluble unity” of the spouses; and finds living expression in the procreation and education of children (cf. GS, 48). A reflection of the divine Trinity, conjugal and parental love, through the Sacrament of Marriage, “is ruled and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ,” so that spouses may love one another “as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” (ibid.).
Having illuminated the reality of marriage with the light of Christ’s love, which is the truth of both human and divine love, Gaudium et spes turns its attention to conjugal love and marital fruitfulness. Conjugal love is not limited to erotic attraction—which is also part of it—but encompasses the entire will of the spouses, rekindling their affection and expressing itself through sentiments and gestures of tenderness (cf. GS, 49). This love embraces the good of the whole person of man and woman, equal in dignity; it permeates the entire life of the spouses and finds expression in acts proper to marriage alone (cf. ibid.). The special intimacy of the spouses signifies the integral love of person to person, fosters mutual self-giving, and enriches their shared joy (cf. ibid.).
The fruitfulness of conjugal love, moreover, is expressed in the procreation of children, “the most excellent gift of marriage” (GS, 50). By transmitting and educating human life, which must never be discarded, spouses become “cooperators in the love of God the Creator and, as it were, his interpreters” (ibid.). Called to this human and Christian responsibility, they must be guided by a right judgment concerning their own good and that of their children, already born or yet to come. This judgment, which ultimately the spouses must form personally before God, requires that their conscience be conformed to the divine law, interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church in the light of the Gospel (cf. ibid.).
The appreciation of loving communion and procreative fruitfulness in marriage leads the Council to exclude the possibility of any “genuine contradiction between the divine laws of the transmission of life and the fostering of authentic conjugal love” (GS, 51); and to affirm, instead, that “when it is a question of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible transmission of life, the moral character of any procedure does not depend solely on sincere intention or on an evaluation of motives. It must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts, which preserve in the context of true love both the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation” (ibid.). It follows that “life must be safeguarded with the utmost care from the moment of conception,” rejecting “abortion and infanticide”; and that “the very acts proper to conjugal life, ordered according to genuine human dignity, must be respected with great reverence” (ibid.).
The teaching of Gaudium et spes on the conjugal and family community thus underscores the social function of the family, which it defines as “the school of a richer humanity” and “the foundation of society” (GS, 52), reminding all those who bear social responsibilities, especially in the political and cultural spheres, of the duty to “contribute effectively to the advancement of marriage and the family” (ibid.).
Dear friends, this commitment is more urgent than ever. The Church knows this well, as shown by the pastoral solicitude of the Popes who have succeeded one another since the last Council, up to the double Synodal Assembly desired by Pope Francis, on which the heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches and the presidents of the Episcopal Conferences have recently dialogued. May the Holy Family of Nazareth enlighten us on our journey and protect families throughout the world.
Greetings
I cordially greet the Spanish-speaking pilgrims. May the Holy Family of Nazareth protect all the families of the world. May God bless you. Thank you very much.
Summary read in Spanish by the Holy Father
Dear brothers and sisters:
Today we begin to reflect on the second part of the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, which deals with some of the most urgent problems of our time, including the family and marriage; the Council explains that marriage consists in a mutual self-giving that demands complete fidelity and an indissoluble unity. Moreover, it is a fruitful love expressed in the transmission of life as well as in the education of children.