Close to priests in difficultyPrevious Article
Works that will lastNext Article
Breaking News

With Gospel realism

Article
Line Spacing+- AFont Size+- Print This Article
With Gospel realism

It is important to look at the family today with “€œGospel realism”€ that does not stop “€œat describing situations, problems much less sin”€, but manages to see an opportunity, a possibility “€œbehind every face, every story, every situation”€. This is the pastoral direction that Pope Francis offered, inaugurating the work of the
conference of the Diocese of Rome dedicated to the topic: “€œThe joy of love: the
journey of the families of Rome in the light of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

On Thursday evening, 16 June, to the bishops, priests and catechists gathered in the Basilica of St John Lateran, the Pontiff proposed a reading path for the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation: “€œthe life of every person, the life of every family must be treated with great respect and much care”€, he said. “€œLet us be wary of setting up a ministry of the ghetto and for the ghetto; let us give space to the elderly so that they may dream again”€. It is a matter of “€œthree images”€, he explained, “€œwhich remind us that faith does not remove us from the world, but integrates us more deeply in it: not like the perfect and immaculate ones who think they know it all, but as people who know the love that God has for us”€.

Later, following several questions, Francis returned to several topics, warning in particular against individualism and calling for “€œthe way of tenderness, of listening, of support”€. Regarding the pastoral care of families, the Pope counselled against the pitfalls of “€œrigorism”€ and “€œlaxity”€, because there are no “€œmathematical certainties”€ in the doctrinal field. Morality, he said, “€œis an act of love, always: love of God, love of neighbour. It is also an act that leaves room for the conversion of the other,it does not condemn straight away”€.

Article

Vatican Live Video Feed

Pope Francis on Twitter