Family life is exhibiting fragility with marriage and birth rates down, according to the Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin.

The Archbishop had been in Rome last week at the international assembly called by Pope Leo XIV to mark ten years after Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

He said the assembly heard about the huge cultural shifts which have had a major impact on family.

“We recognised much brokenness in families, the decline in birth rate and marriage rate, and the increased ease of divorce.  Rates of cohabitation are also on the rise, and the seeming avoidance by young people of life-long commitment”.

He asked specifically how the Church can “encourage young people to embrace a vocation to marriage”.