Posted on 10/09/2026 2:16:11 PM PDT by ebb tide
Professor Vincenzo Rosito, the Vice Dean of the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences, asked attendees in an address to the ongoing Amoris Laetitia Summit, which praised the 10-year spirit of Pope Francis’ 2016 document, to ponder what is needed to learn new ways of “being a family” and “being a church.”
In his October 8 address, Rosito praised “the spirit of Amoris Laetitia,” which allowed divorced and “remarried” couples to receive the Eucharist in certain circumstances, especially its focus on the implications between the “changes” within the Church and the family. The dean concluded his remarks by asking the clerics and theologians in attendance to ponder how they can “learn and imagine new ways of being a family and new ways of being a church.”
“If, therefore, ‘the welfare of the family is decisive for the future of the world and that of the Church.’ (AL 31), we might ask ourselves this question: What do we need, amidst the light and shadow of today, to learn and imagine new ways of being a family and new ways of being the Church?”
In his remarks, Rosito emphasized that over the last decade, Amoris Laetitia has taught the Church that it is not enough to simply “list the main changes affecting the contemporary family.” It must also “focus on the relationship between the Church and the family.”
This may be a subtle reference to the uptick in divorced and “remarried” couples over the last several decades.
The theologian compared the beginning of Amoris Laetitia with the first line of the Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et Spes, highlighting their shared focus on the joy of families as the joy of the Church. Rosito then discussed the pastoral care of families and how building families relates to the practice of “being the Church,” without distinguishing between a true family and those who are divorced and “remarried.”
READ: Cardinal betrays natural family at Amoris Laetitia summit
“The anxieties and hopes of the multitudes are ‘familiar’ to the Church; they are a resource for the Church, the family of God,” he said. “This is why the practices of building a family today are relevant to the practices of being the Church, the family of God, today.”
“We could also express this perspective through the principle of pastoral care: ‘There can be no proclamation of the Gospel of God without taking responsibility for those to whom it is addressed,'” he added. “Families, as the recipients of the Gospel message, have already experienced a story of love with God; the Gospel is already at work within them. Pastoral care, therefore, is a space in which the Church understands what God is saying to her through families, so that the Church herself may better understand the Gospel and its proclamation.”
Rosito continued:
Both the Church and the family, in fact, learn through the practices of their daily lives. For example, both churches and families welcome and accompany others through concrete practices – through habitual and shared actions – by means of which we invite, gather, celebrate or commemorate.
Since Amoris Laetitia’s publication ten years ago, several prominent Catholic prelates and thinkers have criticized its ambiguity and the confusion it has sown.
Just this week, during an interview about the ongoing summit, Bishop Athanasius Schneider said the text is “against divine law” and must be “explicitly corrected.” Schneider questioned how the Vatican could discuss the family without resolving the “confusion” that Amoris Laetitia has spread, arguing that the Rome gathering “should, with all honesty, address it with the Pope saying that it cannot continue as it has done.”
READ: Bishop Schneider: Amoris Laetitia ‘must be corrected’
Schneider also asked how the meeting could discuss the family without resolving the “confusion” the document has spread.
“How can we delve deeper into what marriage and the family is, when there is confusion? We will simply delve in a deeper confusion still,” the bishop observed.
“How can we continue to promote marriage as God established it – teaching the indissolubility of marriage and the family, which is the domestic church in reality – in an environment of obvious confusion regarding the indissolubility of marriage, because Amoris Laetitia opened the door for communion for divorced people,” he continued.
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I’ve never read Laetitia Amoris, but it just occurred to me that it could be translated as the Gayness of Love. Surely that is not a coincidence.
“The Joy of Lust”, ghost written by “Tucho” the pornographer, also in charge of the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith. Come one, come all to Holy Communion!
Mortal sin? Outmoded concept. Don’t be so rigid.
The hierarchy is DYING to come out.
Their hidden, secret lives ARE a burden - but it’s one that past generations have borne - this one, not so much.
How about Man-woman-children as Family.
Let’s stick with that one please.
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