Pope Leo XIV is aware that among the vocations to which men and women are called by God, marriage is one of the "noblest and highest."
He said as much last October, on the 10th anniversary of the canonization of Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Now, the pope has set in motion a process to address both marital crises and the growing fear among young people of getting married and forming a family.
Leo XIV has called the presidents of the world's bishops' conferences to Rome this October to seek a response to an issue he considers crucial not only for the Church but also for society.
In preparation for the high-level meeting, the Vatican organized a study day Tuesday titled "The Sacrament of Marriage, Faith, and Munus Docendi" at the Casina Pio IV.
The initiative, hosted by the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, brought together about 75 participants by invitation, including representatives of various dicasteries of the Roman Curia as well as rectors, lecturers, and others involved in the formation of future pastors.
According to the dicastery, the study day was devoted to the formation of priests in accompanying "young people, engaged couples, and married couples in faith."
How can the Church form pastors capable of accompanying young people, engaged couples, and spouses so that they live Christian marriage as an authentic experience of faith in a cultural context marked by secularization? Several speakers addressed that question, including Father Andrea Bozzolo, rector of the Pontifical Salesian University.
Speaking with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, the Italian priest — who has taught theology of marriage at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family — emphasized the urgent need to form priests who are prepared to accompany young people and help them live Christian marriage as a true event of faith rather than as a mere "formality or social rite."
According to Bozzolo, in large sectors of contemporary society, marriage is no longer perceived as a decisive moment in the formation of a family.
"For many couples, marriage today seems to be a less decisive step in the emergence of the family covenant," he said.
In that context, he added, cohabitation before marriage has become widespread as a kind of trial stage. For many young people, the strength of that relationship, tested in daily life, "has become the condition for eventually considering access to marriage," he said.
Bozzolo explained that this mentality fuels the now widespread phenomenon of couples living together before going to the altar.
Unlike in past decades, when de facto unions were presented as an ideological alternative to marriage, today "they are often understood as a preparatory path," he said.
In what he described as a "liquid society," cohabitation frequently functions as a first family experience, open to being consolidated over time into a more stable relationship.
"Cohabitation in most cases does not seek to exclude the marriage covenant but rather to verify its viability," he said, noting that the increase in separations also reflects this way of understanding the bond.
Not blaming, but not trivializing
In response to this reality, Bozzolo said the Church should "not blame" young people who ask to marry after living together, but it also should not "trivialize" premarital cohabitation, because "it is not the correct way" to arrive at the altar.
He also called on the Church to break with stereotypes that present love as if it were "a simple feeling."
"Love has ontological value — and not merely psychological value — and that is why marriage is a privileged vehicle for the biblical revelation of the face of God," he said.
Bozzolo insisted on the need for priestly formation that helps future priests rediscover the decisive value of marriage as a public and sacramental act.
"The public and religious expression of consent," he said, is no longer usually perceived today as something that substantially affects the stability of the bond — a reality he described as "a pastoral challenge of the first order."
Marriage is not a simple social procedure
For that reason, he said, it is essential for the Church to prepare priests who can accompany young people along a journey of faith that presents Christian marriage not as a "simple social procedure."
The goal, Bozzolo explained, is to help priests accompany married couples so that they learn to "recognize the presence and action of God in the concrete history of their bond."
Such accompaniment, he said, requires a "formative approach" capable of bringing together biblical wisdom, theological understanding, an awareness of contemporary cultural trends, and attentive listening to the real experiences of families.
One current problem among couples, he said, is the tendency to absolutize the relationship and place expectations on the spousal bond that the other person cannot sustain alone.
"We cannot place the entire responsibility for our happiness on our spouse, because he or she will disappoint us. For that, we have Jesus, the true messiah," Bozzolo said.
Only from a well-grounded faith, he emphasized, is it possible to live marriage in a healthy, realistic way that is open to gratuitousness, without making the other person the ultimate source of meaning.
For that reason, and in direct relation to the formation of future priests, Bozzolo highlighted the need to create formation paths in seminaries that integrate these dimensions and prepare pastors for authentic marriage ministry, rooted in life and not reduced to theoretical frameworks.
The last time a pope called together all the presidents of the world's bishops' conferences was in February 2019, when Pope Francis gathered them to address the wound of sexual abuse in the Church. That meeting marked a shift in the global perception of the problem and made it possible to outline a long-term strategy.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
