Pope Francis has said that the Church must fully support the traditional family.
In his remarks on the second day of the synod on the family, the Pontiff described as “profound” the relationship between the Church and the family and stressed that “when families journey along the way of the Lord, they offer a fundamental witness to God’s love, and they deserve the full commitment and support of the Church”.
The Church’s role was all the more important, he added, as “political and economic life today does not always support the family, and seems to have lost the ability to incorporate the virtues of family life into the common life of society. Here the Church is called to exercise her mission by first examining to what extent she is living as the family of God.”
According to the Vatican press office, Pope Francis had earlier addressed participants beginning their second day of discussion at the synod, insisting that “Catholic teaching on marriage has not been put into question”. This was a reference to an apparent perception among some that the Church might be about to change some of its fundamental teachings on marriage and the family.
He also countered the impression that the big topic of the Synod would be whether the divorced and remarried could receive Holy Communion.
“We should not let ourselves be conditioned by or to reduce the horizons of our work as if the only problem were that of Communion for the divorced and remarried or not,” the Pope reportedly told them.
The National Catholic Register, which is reporting on the Synod from Rome, reported that the second day of discussion among prelates subsequently engaged with the Church’s role in marriage preparation, with speakers agreeing on “the need for a new catechesis for marriage and ‘new language to speak to people of our time’”.
