By Isabella H. de Carvalho

“The first thing I would like to say to you is: thank you! Thank you for the support of your prayers. Thanks be to God for His generosity. Let us all renew our trust in the goodness and mercy of God,” Pope Leo XIV said on October 20 in St. Peter's Square, during his first Wednesday General Audience after having undergone surgery. 

Pope Leo XIV was discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Saturday, October 17, after five days in hospital following a lung operation on Tuesday, October 13. 

Pope Leo continued the catechesis cycle on the Documents of the Second Vatican Council and reflected on the 1965 Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (meaning “joy and hope”) on the Church in the modern world.

This week he focused on marriages and family, underlining the need to protect and preserve them as they are crucial to society. 

The teaching of Gaudium et Spes on marriage and the family highlights “the social function of the family, defined as ‘a school of deeper humanity’ and ‘the foundation of society,’” and it calls “upon all those with social responsibilities, especially in the political and cultural spheres, to fulfil their duty to ‘work efficiently for the welfare of marriage and the family’,” he emphasized.

“This task is more urgent than ever before," said the Pope.

In his catechesis, Pope Leo underlined that the Church is well aware of the value and importance of the family, recalling the pastoral concern shown by various Popes on this topic.

In this regard, he also mentioned the recent meeting that he had called at the Vatican to reflect on Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, on the tenth anniversary of its publication. The event took place from October 7 to 14 and gathered the heads of Eastern Churches and the Presidents of Bishops’ Conference.

Looking back to the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, Pope Leo XIV noted how in the part of this document that looks at “the most pressing contemporary issues,” there is a large focus on marriage and family, as “the well-being of the individual and of human and Christian society is intimately linked with the healthy condition of that community produced by marriage and family.”

Gaudium et Spes, the Pope explained, proposes a renewed conception of marriage “as an ‘intimate partnership of married life and love’,” founded on the “human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each another.”

“The mutual self-giving of man and woman, such that ‘they are no longer two but one flesh’, underlies the requirement for ‘total fidelity’ and the ‘unbreakable oneness’ of the spouses, finding vivid expression in the procreation and upbringing of children,” he continued, adding that spouses are called to love one another like Christ loves His Church.

The Pope then focused on marital love which he emphasized is “not limited to erotic attraction, which it nonetheless encompasses.” Marital love, he said, “involves the entire will of the spouses, enlivening the affections of their hearts and expressing itself through sentiments and gestures of tenderness.”

This love embraces completely the man and woman, “who are equal in dignity,” and then pervades their entire life, finding expression in “acts proper exclusively to marriage,” he noted, adding that this “unique intimacy” then fosters “mutual self-giving.”

Furthermore, the Pope stressed that marital fruitfulness is expressed through the gift of having children.

“By transmitting and educating human life, which must never be rejected, spouses become ‘cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are, so to speak, the interpreters of that love’,” he said.

Parents are then called to be “guided by a sound judgement regarding their own good and that of their children,” with God’s help and with a conscience that conforms “to divine law,” as interpreted by the Church in light of the Gospel.

Pope Leo then underlined that “when there is the question of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible transmission of life,” one must “preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love.”

This means “from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care,” renouncing abortion and infanticide, and “the acts themselves which are proper to conjugal love and which are exercised in accord with genuine human dignity must be honoured with great reverence,” he explained.

The Pope concluded by praying that the Holy Family of Nazareth may “enlighten us on our journey and protect families throughout the world.”

Attendees at the General Audience included Frank Zammit, Ambassador of Malta to the Holy See, who accompanied the Maltese Minister for Local Government & Public Works, Alisson Zerafa Civelli, along with 6 Regional Presidents and all 68 Mayors of Malta and Gozo, to meet the Pope.

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