Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

June 2016 – In early April, the Vatican released Pope Francis’s 256-page exhortation to the church called Amoris Laetitia (Latin for “the joy of love”). This landmark document comes as a tour de force of the Pope’s practical theology regarding issues of sex, marriage, and family life. While Pope Francis has been seen by many as ushering in a new, more inclusive chapter for the Catholic church, this document makes no official changes to doctrine. It does, however, point to a less rigid relationship between the strict religious parameters of Catholic leadership and personal responsibility of laity.

“I understand those who prefer a more rigorous pastoral care which leaves no room for confusion,” Pope Francis noted. “But I sincerely believe that Jesus wants a church attentive to the goodness which the Holy Spirit sows in the midst of human weakness. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.”

Interestingly, Amoris Laetitia provides greater grace and inclusion to divorcees (who are often denied communion). However, the document repeatedly notes marriage as a union between a man and a woman and affirms the traditional and foundational pro-life view of the Catholic church: “So great is the value of a human life, and so inalienable the right to life of an innocent child growing in the mother’s womb, that no alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision to terminate that life.”

usatoday.com, 4/8/16; lifesitenews.com, 4/8/16