Following the World Meeting of Families, Gabriella Gambino, Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, discusses the successes the Meeting has shown, especially in demonstrating how the worldwide Church is itself one big family.
In 10 episodes, one each month, we bring you a video with the Pope's reflections and first-hand testimonies of families from across the world on the theme of the family. The initiative is a joint collaboration between the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, and Vatican News, and aims to 're-read' the Apostolic Exhortation, with the aid of downloadable material prepared for personal and community reflection. As Pope Francis reminds us: being a family is always "primarily an opportunity".
Pope Francis underlines the importance of collaboration involving the clergy, married couples and families in the mission of evangelization in a video message to participants at a forum to reflect on the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
Pope Francis for the month of June is asking faithful to join him in praying for young couples preparing for marriage – an intention that falls withing the broader year dedicated to Amoris Laetitia the pope’s major document on family life.
ROME – Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis has gone out of his way to push the concept of “discernment” – a much-beloved process in Jesuit spirituality – as key to the spiritual life, yet according to one expert, while the term is used often, not many people actually know what this means.(Credit: Pixabay.)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Sometimes the Catholic Church has "proposed a far too abstract and almost artificial theological ideal of marriage, far removed from the concrete situations and practical possibilities of real families," Pope Francis wrote in his 2016 exhortation, "Amoris Laetitia."
Ten families from around the world will offer their video testimonies reflecting on the papal document. Cardinal Farrell calls it "an invitation to understand today’s challenges and the blessings of family life."
Officials from the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, along with a married couple, introduce the Year “Amoris Laetitia Family,” which begins on March 19 – the Solemnity of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Families need the care and attention of the church, but they also have so much to offer its pastoral programs and priests, said Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life.
Responding to efforts in some parts of the Catholic world to devise “blessings” of same-sex unions by the Church, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog released a statement Monday saying that such blessings are “not legitimate,” as homosexual unions are “not ordered to the Creator’s plan.”
While homosexual men and women must be respected, any form of blessing a same-sex union is "illicit," said the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the cardinal welcomed Pope Francis' announcement Dec. 27 that in March the Catholic Church would begin a special year dedicated to the family and to deeper reflection on "Amoris Laetitia," the pope's 2016 apostolic exhortation on family life.