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Vatican City, Apr 8, 2016 / 02:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis' new document on love in the family is welcome particularly for its steadfast adherence to Church teaching on homosexual acts and relationships, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna said.

“There’s another point in which (Pope Francis) is very firm: speaking about gay couples or homosexual couples, he insists very clearly that only the union between a man and woman, open to new life, by principle, can be called a marriage,” the cardinal told CNA April 8 during an interview shortly after leading the press conference presenting Amoris Laetitia at the Vatican.

“And I'm very happy that he did clarify this, because the other situations can be partnerships, relationships, but it’s certainly not a marriage.”

The apostolic exhortation is the conclusion of a two-year synod process discussing both the beauty and challenges of family life today. Hosted at the Vatican in 2014 and 2015, these synods gathered hundreds of bishops from around the world.

It makes a brief but clear reference to homosexuality, saying that “the Church makes her own the attitude of the Lord Jesus, who offers his boundless love to each person without exception … We would like before all else to reaffirm that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while 'every sign of unjust discrimination' is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence.”

Pope Francis wrote that families which include gay persons “should be given respectful pastoral guidance, so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God's will in their lives.”

He then quoted the Synod Fathers, who had written that “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family” and that it is unacceptable that “international bodies should make financial aid to poor countries dependent on the introduction of laws to establish 'marriage' between persons of the same sex.”

Cardinal Schönborn called the document “a great catechesis.”

“You can take chapter by chapter, passage by passage, and work through it in the parish, in the communities. It’s a great, great catechesis on marital and familial love. And I think that’s a source we can use for our pastoral work.”

Cardinal Schönborn noted that “it's fascinating to see how much (Pope Francis) relies on the work of the bishops in the synods” in his document, and that he “quoted a great number of texts from both synods.”

Much of the media discussion of the synods has focused on pastoral care of the divorced-and-remarried.

Pope Francis' discussion of accompaniment for the divorced-and-remarried focused on a discernment made in conjunction with one's pastor, and Cardinal Schönborn affirmed that “there is a danger, of course,” of couples not being led properly in such discernment.

“But, this danger exists always, since the beginning of the Church, because shepherds can lead or mislead,” he reflected. “They can be too harsh, or too compromising. But this is the art he is speaking about: the art of accompanying people. That’s the proper capacity for a Good Shepherd.”

During the press conference, Cardinal Schönborn had been joined by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, and by the Mianos, a married couple from Italy.

Cardinal Schönborn began the event by saying there has been “too much concentration” on the questions regarding the pastoral care of the divorced-and-remarried. “It’s a trap to focus everything on this point because you forget the sum total of the situation.”

“A key to reading Amoris laetitia is the experience of the poor,” he said. “In the families of the poor, little steps on the path of virtue are experienced that can be much greater than those who live in 'comfortable success'.”

He added that even after the release of this apostolic exhortation, “there are many questions to continue to discuss, and one of the points is a renovation of sacramental praxis. Fifty years after Vatican II it is good to think about what a sacramental life means, and not only in a particular case.”

Several questions focused on the relationship between Amoris laetitia and Familiaris consortio, St. John Paul II's own apostolic exhortation following a Synod on the Family, which was published in 1981.

“I don't see that there is a change,” Cardinal Schönborn said, “but certainly there is a development, just as Pope John Paul developed doctrine … John Henry Newman explained to us how the organic development of doctrine works. Pope Francis is developing things in this way.”

Cardinal Baldisseri responded to a question regarding “ongoing debate” about pastoral care, saying that “the Church is on the road, so it’s the synod question which is important. It’s not that it’s ever closed. We’re moving forward, walking together with certainties: revelation and everything that is the tradition of the Church. The discourse continues.”

“But, we’re sure of what we have. In this sense, it’s not closed. It’s open, and for the theologians, it's their task and responsibility to deepen doctrine; so that’s why this continues. It’s a dynamic form. The Pope also speaks of steps: this is a step. We need to take little steps at all levels, whether in the family or relationships with people, and also in the field of theological research and deepening.”

Ann Schneible contributed to this report.

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Washington D.C., Apr 8, 2016 / 05:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The United States bishops are welcoming Pope Francis’s new apostolic exhortation, Amoris laetitia, praising the Pope’s call for careful encouragement and support of married life and engagement with families facing challenges.

The bishops also echo the Holy Father’s call for a careful and considered reading of the text, urging understanding as Catholics seek to apply the Pope’s recommendations to their families and to society.

“The Pope has given us a love letter – a love letter to families,” said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a Friday press conference. The document, the archbishop said, challenges the faithful to grow in love and trust in God’s mercy in the face of difficulty. “Let us remember that no obstacle is too big for Christ to overcome.”

Archbishop Kurtz also echoed the Pope’s own caution against “a rushed reading of the text” when turning to it for pastoral guidance and understanding. “I really encourage each one of us to read and reflect carefully on the words of Pope Francis – how they can be applied to our lives, our families and our society.”

Archbishop Kurtz was one of eight American participants in the two-year synod process that led up to the release. The process featured two meetings of bishops, or synods, hosted at the Vatican in 2014 and 2015, which culminated in the release of Amoris laetitia April 8.

Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo,  chairman of the USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, said the letter is a “beautiful and stirring reflection on love and the family” that challenges pastoral ministry to be more “missionary” and to engage with the “concrete reality” of parishioners’ lives.

He promised that the U.S. bishops “stand with families and seek to support those who are touched by poverty, trafficking, immigration challenges, domestic violence and pornography.”

“We also have room to grow and improve and we welcome the Pope’s encouragement of a renewed witness to the truth and beauty of marriage and a more tender closeness with couples and families who are experiencing real difficulties,” he commented.

Bishop Malone also stressed to CNA that the first step for bishops and pastors in implementing the advice presented in Amoris laetitia is to take time to read and truly understand it. “We cannot rush our interpretation of what we have here,” he emphasized. “We don’t want to be taking bits and piece of them without taking them in context.”

While it is too early to know what the full impact of the exhortation will be, Bishop Malone said that American bishops and pastors will likely seek ways to strengthen marriage preparation and support for married couples – both topics Pope Francis emphasizes in the letter. Archbishop Kurtz agreed with his colleague, telling CNA that improvements to marriage preparation and support of couples after marriage “will probably be the largest impact” within the United States.

Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, who also participated in the synod meetings in Rome, welcomed the document as a gift both to the Church and to “everyone who wants to understand what God really intends for our true happiness.” The archbishop said in a statement that while he is going to “read his reflections slowly and carefully,” he was encouraged by the Pope’s emphasis on marriage preparation and support of couples in their first years of marriage.

“I was also touched by our Holy Father’s call for all of us in the Church to reach out with compassion to wounded families and persons living in difficult situations,” the Archbishop commented.

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia stressed that while the document “changes no Church teaching or discipline, it does stress the importance of pastoral sensitivity in dealing with the difficult situations many married couples today face.” Archbishop Chaput also participated in the Synod meetings in Rome, and hosted the World Meeting of Families in Sept. 2015 in Philadelphia.

Archbishop Chaput pointed to the letter’s large size – more than 250 pages – and praised the Holy Father’s advice to read Amoris laetitia carefully and slowly, promising further thoughts of his own as he finished reading the exhortation. Meanwhile, he thanked the Pope for his thoughts and analysis of the “unique witness” of Christian marriage. “Nothing is more essential to any society than the health of marriage and the family,” he concluded.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis' document on the family reflects an "organic development" of church teaching and doctrine, said Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, theologian and participant in both synods that dealt with the topic.

"There are true innovations, but no break" in tradition, the cardinal told reporters during a news conference at the Vatican April 8 presenting the apostolic exhortation "Amoris Laetitia" ("The Joy of Love").

The document emphasizes the need for greater reflection and discernment by pastors and Catholic couples in so-called "irregular" situations as they look for ways they can participate more deeply in church life, he said.

Proper discernment is nothing new, the cardinal told another reporter. It has always been the serious duty of the lay faithful and their pastors or confessors. Everyone is responsible, he said, because "you cannot play with the sacraments, you cannot play with the conscience."

Those in a broken marriage must honestly examine their conscience before God, he said, and reflect on their role in the marriage's breakdown or whether it was canonically valid in the first place.

A married couple, both philosophy professors, spoke at the news conference about their impressions of the exhortation.

Giuseppina De Simone said the pope's tone and style made it feel like he was taking people "by the hand to discover the beauty of our families -- imperfect, fragile, but extraordinary because they are supported in their daily journey by the love of the Lord who never tires, doesn't renege, and makes everything new."

She said the text is an invitation for people to step away from the noise, confusion and discouragements in the world, and to look, listen and truly appreciate "the treasure we have in our hands, the great good there is in the normalcy of our lives."

So many problems and crises in families, she said, grow out of an inability to make time for the other and look at others with mercy and respect.

Families and love are a "dynamic process" that require "struggle and rebirth, reinventing itself and always starting over," she said.

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Follow Glatz on Twitter: @CarolGlatz.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn

By Dennis Sadowski

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation on love and the family invites the church to see the daily struggles of families as an opportunity to encounter people the way Jesus encountered people with mercy throughout his life, Catholic observers said.

Because of its length -- 256 pages -- and the depth to which the pope explores love, marriage and church teaching on the family, the document deserves to be unpacked with patience and careful discernment for mercy to take root in the church's response to real human needs, Catholic leaders told Catholic News Service.

The exhortation, "'Amoris Laetitia' (The Joy of Love), on Love in the Family," was Pope Francis' reflection on the discussion, debate and suggestions raised during the 2014 and 2015 meetings of the Synod of Bishops on the family.

Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, noted Pope Francis' repeated calls of the importance of clergy taking time to get to know individual circumstance and discuss with people how they can discern God's teaching for their lives.

The pope points to "dialogue, which requires both speaking and listening, and discerning to help people see what their next step is" as key to his call for mercy, Archbishop Kurtz, a member of both synods, said in an interview after participating in an online news conference at USCCB headquarters.

The archbishop said the pope is attempting to help people encounter Jesus and through that encounter feel the love of God. "There is that sense of being very intentional because we carry with us the capacity to walk with people to Christ. And he's saying husbands and wives, you also have that potential," Archbishop Kurtz said.

"We all share that responsibility to conversion about what does it mean to deepen our sense and let Christ shine more clearly through so people don't see the rule (of the church), they see the person of Jesus coming through," he explained.

During the news conference, Archbishop Kurtz described the exhortation as a "love letter to families" that invites all people to "never stop growing in love."

"It is also a love letter calling the church, the family of God, to realize more and more her mission to live and love as a family," he said.

Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, New York, chairman of the bishops' Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family, Life and Youth, said the exhortation invites the church to heal wounds that families experience because of poverty, human trafficking, immigration, domestic violence and pornography.

"We also have room to grow and improve and we welcome the pope's encouragement for the renewed witness to the truth and beauty of marriage of a more tender closeness and families who are experiencing real difficulties," Bishop Malone said.

Both prelates said the exhortation builds on the teaching of the Second Vatican Council as well as Pope Francis' post-conciliar successors, Blessed Paul VI, St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and invites ministers to welcome people who may have turned away from the church because they feared their status -- as single parents or being in same-sex relationships, or being divorced and civilly remarried -- would mean they are unwelcome in the church.

"I think the call is for the whole church, the bishops, the priests, the lay leadership, but also each family to be able to say 'God has given me such beauty in my family and things with his help can be much more. I think that's what he is talking about the grace that is at work in each one of our lives," Archbishop Kurtz said in response to a question.

Helen Alvare, professor of law at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, who was the third news conference participant, described the document as balancing the natural longing for marriage in society with a "raw appreciation for how bad the situation can be on the ground."

The pope acknowledges misperceptions about church teaching on sex, that some perceive marriage as evil so avoid it, the fear of raising children, and ideas that marriage has become an "empty ritual," Alvare said.

She also identified the pope's deep concerns for children, whose rights are often overlooked because of the challenges facing many families.

While the exhortation upholds church teaching on the sanctity of marriage and cites the importance of family life to the church, it calls people to do more than simply reiterate that teaching, but to put it into "pastoral motion," Catholic leaders told Catholic News Service.

John Grabowski, associate professor of moral theology and ethics at The Catholic University of America and an expert tapped to attend last fall's Synod of Bishops on the family, said the document serves to help church leaders "form and equip families to that families can become the pastoral instruments of ministry and evangelization to families."

"He's not diverging from the teaching of his predecessors. He's saying 'Let's put this into pastoral application now,'" he said.

Grabowski, who with his wife, Claire, lead a marriage ministry for couples in their parish, St. Ignatius in Ijamsville, Maryland, sees the need for such programs emerging from the exhortation. "We need to stop seeing marriage formation as ending at the wedding," he said.

The pope's exhortation discusses how the church can be "honest, realistic and creative" in response to the needs of families, explained Jesuit Father Allan Deck, distinguished scholar in pastoral theology and Latino Studies at Loyola Marymount University.

He said the pope's emphasis on the need to be open to ongoing discussion within the church and its response to "real families" would serve all families.

"He shows great sensitivity on the various positions people have in the church," Father Deck told CNS. "He's not moving back from his conviction that mercy and the attitudes that flow from mercy are at the foundation of the way the church needs to proceed because those are the qualities that we see in God."

Father Deck added that he sees the influence of the pope's Latin American roots in the document. "That means in our dealing with people, the church needs to show an ability to step into other people's shoes, to go where they are instead of immediately requiring them to come where we are," he said.

Jana Bennett, associate professor of theological ethics at the University of Dayton in Ohio, said she found the document signifies an important shift in the way the church thinks about moral theology. "We invited to think about pastoral discernment in a way that we're not just looking at rules," she said.

At the same time, the pope is calling the church to be patient in how the exhortation is lived out or implemented in parishes, Bennett explained.

"He's calling us to be patient with families ... that we're all important," she said.

While Bennett said that Pope Francis' immediate predecessors held up an ideal of family, the pontiff is calling the church to recognize that image, but to realize "that we're not going to meet that ideal."

Father Paul Check, executive director of Courage International, which provides support for people who experience same-sex attraction, said the pope is calling the church to recognize the value of each person first.

"It's only by understanding who people are and who they are created to be by Christ that we can best accompany them," he told CNS.

He also said Pope Francis' citation of "Humanae Vitae" ("On Human Life"), which affirmed Catholic moral teaching against artificial contraception, is important to note because it continues to uphold long-standing church teaching.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, a member of both synods, said that with the huge number of references in the document to the two synods, "it's clear that Pope Francis is trying to insert in the mainstream of Catholic theological thought and tradition the expressions of the challenges that the bishops say they are facing and what the bishops brought to this whole discussion."

"I don't find anything surprising" in the document, he told CNS in Rome during a break from meetings, "but I welcome its welcoming tone addressed to everyone. He's saying: 'This is the faith of the church. Yes, it's difficult to live. Yes, we know we don't all live it as fully as we should. But we are still all part of God's family, God loves us and we have to be making our way together."

Recognizing the complex variety of reasons why some people cannot and do not fully live up to church teaching on marriage and family life, Pope Francis provides no new rules for dealing with those situations. Cardinal Wuerl said Catholic theology and pastoral tradition "never had a one-size-fits all. The idea is that there is an ideal to which we are called, a level of perfection to which we are called -- 'Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.' How do that? That's the one size that fits all, but along the way the church has always said the good pastor goes out in search of the lost sheep and surely that lost sheep is not someone who is following to perfection" the Christian ideal.

"Jesus said, 'Seek first the kingdom and everything else will be given to you.' He didn't say, 'Until you have achieved the fullness of the kingdom, nothing will be given to you.'"

"It's a beautiful apostolic exhortation because it doesn't say, 'Here are the answers to everything.'"

On the situation of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, the document "starts with this beautiful reminder, 'You're still part of the family.'"

The document, he said, invites the divorced and civilly remarried to acknowledge church teaching on the indissolubility of marriage and to honestly examine their situation and discover how they can grow closer to Christ.

"I don't see anything in the document that changes much of what we're already doing in pastoral practice and that is you meet with people, you try to help them address their lived situation," he said. "We're not changing anything (in church teaching), but we're not saying, 'because you're not perfect, this is no longer your home.'"

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Contributing to this story was Cindy Wooden in Rome.

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Follow Sadowski on Twitter: @DennisSadowski.

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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