Top Ten
Takeaways from “Amoris Laetitia”
Pope
Francis’s groundbreaking new document “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of
Love”) asks the church to meet people where they are, to consider the
complexities of people’s lives and to respect people’s consciences when it
comes to moral decisions. The apostolic exhortation is mainly a document that
reflects on family life and encourages families. But it is also the pope’s
reminder that the church should avoid simply judging people and imposing rules
on them without considering their struggles.
Using
insights from the Synod of Bishops on the Family and from bishops’ conferences
from around the world, Pope Francis affirms church teaching on family life and
marriage, but strongly emphasizes the role of personal conscience and pastoral
discernment. He urges the church to appreciate the context of people’s lives
when helping them make good decisions. The goal is to help families—in
fact, everyone—experience God’s love and know that they are welcome members of
the church. All this may require what the pope calls “new pastoral methods”
(199).
Here
are ten things to know about the pope’s groundbreaking new document.
1. The church needs to understand families and individuals
in all their complexity. The
church needs to meet people where they are. So pastors are to “avoid judgements
which do not take into account the complexity of various situations” (296).
People should not be “pigeonholed or fit into overly rigid classifications
leaving no room for personal and pastoral discernment” (298). In other words,
one size does not fit all. People are encouraged to live by the Gospel, but
should also be welcomed into a church that appreciates their particular
struggles and treats them with mercy. “Thinking that everything is black and
white” is to be avoided (305). And the church cannot apply moral laws as if
they were “stones to throw at people’s lives” (305). 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 practice in certain
situations which do not objectively embody our understanding of marriage”
(303). That is, the traditional belief that individual conscience is the final
arbiter of the moral life has been forgotten here. The church has been “called
to form consciences, not to replace them” (37). Yes, it is true, the Pope says,
that a conscience needs to be formed by church teaching. But conscience does
more than to judge what does or does not agree with church teaching. Conscience
can also recognize with “a certain moral security” what God is asking (303).
Pastors, therefore, need to help people not simply follow rules, but to
practice “discernment,” a word that implies prayerful decision making (304).
3. 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
counseling them in the “internal forum,” (that is, in private conversations
between the priest and person or couple), 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 spelled out 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 church (243).
4. 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, sometimes gleaned from exhortations and
homilies regarding the family. 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). The pope, speaking as a pastor, encourages not only married couples, but
also engaged couples, expectant mothers, adoptive parents, widows, as well as
aunts, uncles and grandparents. He is especially attentive that no one feels
unimportant or excluded from God’s love.
5. We should no longer talk about people “living in sin.” In a
sentence that reflects a new approach, the pope says clearly, “It can no longer
simply be said that all those living in any ‘irregular situation’ are living in
a state of mortal sin” (301). Other people in “irregular situations,” or
non-traditional families, like single mothers, need to be offered
“understanding, comfort and acceptance” (49). When it comes to these people,
indeed everyone, the church need to stop applying moral laws, as if they were,
in the pope’s vivid phrase, “stones to throw at a person’s life” (305).
6. 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. For this reason and
others, as the pope says at the beginning of the document that for this reason,
not every question can be settled by the magisterium, that is, the
church’s teaching office (3).
7. Traditional teachings on marriage are affirmed, but the
church should not burden people with unrealistic expectations.
Marriage is between one man and one woman and is indissoluble; and same-sex
marriage is not considered marriage. The church continues to hold out an
invitation to healthy marriages. At the same time, the church has often foisted
upon people an “artificial theological ideal of marriage” removed from people’s
everyday lives (36). At times these ideals have been a “tremendous burden” (122).
To that end, 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. 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 need “respectful pastoral guidance”
from the church and its pastors so that gays and lesbians can fully carry out
God’s will in their lives (250).
10. All are welcome. The church must help
families of every sort, and people in every state of life, know that, even in
their imperfections, they are loved by God and can help others experience that
love. 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).
James
Martin, S.J.,
is editor at large at America.
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