Presenting the Apostolic Exhortation harvesting the fruits of the two synods on the family in 2014 and 2015 – The Joy of Love
To clearly reaffirm not “the ideal” of the
family, but its rich and complex reality, in order to reflect on love in the
family together with the women and men of our time. With this purpose in mind,
on 19 March, the Solemnity of St Joseph, Pope Francis signed the Post-synodal
Apostolic Exhortation
Amoris Laetitia.
The highly anticipated document, presented in the Holy See Press Office on
Friday morning, 8 April, speaks the language of experience, offering an open
and profoundly positive outlook, which feeds not on abstractions or ideal
projections, but on pastoral attention to reality. The text, laden with
spiritual points and practical wisdom suitable to every couple and to those
people who hope to build a family, was the fruit of practical collaboration
with people who have experienced many years of family life.
The
vast Exhortation is divided into nine chapters and more than 300 paragraphs
which include the results of the two synods on the family convened by Pope
Francis in 2014 and 2105. The concluding reports of the two conferences are
largely cited, along with documents and teachings of his predecessors, and the
Pontiff’s own catecheses on the family. As he has done previously in other
circumstances, the Pope also drew from the contributions of various episcopal
conferences – among them those of Kenya, Australia and Argentina – and quoted
personages such as Martin Luther King and Erich Fromm, along with cues from the
world of cinema, such as Francis’ nod to the film
Babette’s Feast to
explain the concept of truly free giving.
The
prologue of
Amoris Laetitia is especially meaningful, highlighting the
complexity of the issues and the need for continued open discussion. It is in
fact the fruit of the interventions of the Synod Fathers, which have composed a
“multifaceted gem” for further reflection. In this regard the Pope makes clear
that “not all discussions of doctrinal, moral or pastoral
issues need to be settled by
interventions of the magisterium”. Thus, for some issues, an individual country
or region “can seek solutions better suited to its culture and sensitive to its
traditions and local needs. For ‘cultures are in fact quite diverse and every
general principle… needs to be inculturated, if it is to be respected and
applied’”. But Francis seeks to invite an immediate escape from the sterile
juxtaposition between fear of change and the pure and simple application of abstract
rules. “The debates carried on in the
media, in certain publications and even among the Church’s ministers”, he
writes, “range from an immoderate desire for total change without sufficient
reflection or grounding, to an attitude that would solve everything by applying
general rules or deriving undue conclusions from particular theological
considerations”.