Things Pope Francis says in Amoris Laetitia that few will mention.

very­body’s talkin’ ’bout com­mu­nion, con­fu­sion, dis­union, sec­ond union, this union, that union, rev­o­lu­tion, evo­lu­tion. … Let’s take a look at what else the pope is say­ing. (My empha­sis in bold.)

 

• Mar­riage is between one man and one woman. Same-sex unions are not mar­riage.

29. The word of God tells us that the fam­i­ly is entrust­ed to a man, a woman and their chil­dren, so that they may become a com­mu­nion of per­sons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spir­it.

52. Only the exclu­sive and indis­sol­u­ble union between a man and a woman has a ple­nary role to play in soci­ety as a sta­ble com­mit­ment that bears fruit in new life. We need to acknowl­edge the great vari­ety of fam­i­ly sit­u­a­tions that can offer a cer­tain sta­bil­i­ty, but de fac­to or same-sex unions, for exam­ple, may not sim­ply be equat­ed with mar­riage. No union that is tem­po­rary or closed to the trans­mis­sion of life can ensure the future of soci­ety.

71. Jesus, who rec­on­ciled all things in him­self and redeemed us from sin, not only returned mar­riage and the fam­i­ly to their orig­i­nal form, but also raised mar­riage to the sacra­men­tal sign of his love for the Church.

251. 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. It is unac­cept­able “that local Church­es should be sub­ject­ed to pres­sure in this mat­ter and 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.”

• Mar­riage requires open­ness to life.

11. The abil­i­ty of human cou­ples to beget life is the path along which the his­to­ry of sal­va­tion pro­gress­es. Seen this way, the couple’s fruit­ful rela­tion­ship becomes an image for under­stand­ing and describ­ing the mys­tery of God him­self, for in the Chris­t­ian vision of the Trin­i­ty, God is con­tem­plat­ed as Father, Son and Spir­it of love. The tri­une God is a com­mu­nion of love, and the fam­i­ly is its liv­ing reflec­tion.

42. Con­sumerism may also deter peo­ple from hav­ing chil­dren, sim­ply so they can main­tain a cer­tain free­dom and lifestyle.” The upright con­sciences of spous­es who have been gen­er­ous in trans­mit­ting life may lead them, for suf­fi­cient­ly seri­ous rea­sons, to lim­it the num­ber of their chil­dren, yet pre­cise­ly “for the sake of this dig­ni­ty of con­science, the Church strong­ly rejects the forced State inter­ven­tion in favour of con­tra­cep­tion, ster­il­iza­tion and even abor­tion.” Such mea­sures are unac­cept­able even in places with high birth rates, yet also in coun­tries with dis­turbing­ly low birth rates we see politi­cians encour­ag­ing them. As the bish­ops of Korea have said, this is “to act in a way that is self-con­tra­dic­to­ry and to neglect one’s duty.”

43. The neg­a­tive impact on the social order is clear, as seen in the demo­graph­ic cri­sis, in the dif­fi­cul­ty of rais­ing chil­dren, in a hes­i­tan­cy to wel­come new life, in a ten­den­cy to see old­er per­sons as a bur­den, and in an increase of emo­tion­al prob­lems and out­breaks of vio­lence.

47. Fam­i­lies who lov­ing­ly accept the dif­fi­cult tri­al of a child with spe­cial needs are great­ly to be admired. They ren­der the Church and soci­ety an invalu­able wit­ness of faith­ful­ness to the gift of life. In these sit­u­a­tions, the fam­i­ly can dis­cov­er, togeth­er with the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty, new approach­es, new ways of act­ing, a dif­fer­ent way of under­stand­ing and iden­ti­fy­ing with oth­ers, by wel­com­ing and car­ing for the mys­tery of the frailty of human life. Peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties are a gift for the fam­i­ly and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to grow in love, mutu­al aid and uni­ty. … If the fam­i­ly, in the light of the faith, accepts the pres­ence of per­sons with spe­cial needs, they will be able to rec­og­nize and ensure the qual­i­ty and val­ue of every human life, with its prop­er needs, rights and oppor­tu­ni­ties.

83. Here I feel it urgent to state that, if the fam­i­ly is the sanc­tu­ary of life, the place where life is con­ceived and cared for, it is a hor­ren­dous con­tra­dic­tion when it becomes a place where life is reject­ed and destroyed. So great is the val­ue of a human life, and so inalien­able the right to life of an inno­cent child grow­ing in the mother’s womb, that no alleged right to one’s own body can jus­ti­fy a deci­sion to ter­mi­nate that life, which is an end in itself and which can nev­er be con­sid­ered the “prop­er­ty” of anoth­er human being. The fam­i­ly pro­tects human life in all its stages, includ­ing its last. Con­se­quent­ly, “those who work in health­care facil­i­ties are remind­ed of the moral duty of con­sci­en­tious objec­tion. Sim­i­lar­ly, the Church not only feels the urgency to assert the right to a nat­ur­al death, with­out aggres­sive treat­ment and euthana­sia”, but like­wise “firm­ly rejects the death penal­ty.”

• Mar­riage is indis­sol­u­ble.

62. The Syn­od Fathers not­ed that Jesus, “in speak­ing of God’s orig­i­nal plan for man and woman, reaf­firmed the indis­sol­u­ble union between them, even stat­ing that ‘it was for your hard­ness of heart that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the begin­ning it was not so’ (Mt 19:8). The indis­sol­u­bil­i­ty of mar­riage – ‘what God has joined togeth­er, let no man put asun­der’ (Mt 19:6) – should not be viewed as a ‘yoke’ imposed on human­i­ty, but as a ‘gift’ grant­ed to those who are joined in mar­riage.

123. it is in the very nature of con­ju­gal love to be defin­i­tive. The last­ing union expressed by the mar­riage vows is more than a for­mal­i­ty or a tra­di­tion­al for­mu­la; it is root­ed in the nat­ur­al incli­na­tions of the human per­son. For believ­ers, it is also a covenant before God that calls for fideli­ty: “The Lord was wit­ness to the covenant between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faith­less, though she is your com­pan­ion and your wife by covenant… Let none be faith­less to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce, says the Lord” (Mal 2:14–16).

218. Anoth­er great chal­lenge of mar­riage prepa­ra­tion is to help cou­ples real­ize that mar­riage is not some­thing that hap­pens once for all. Their union is real and irrev­o­ca­ble, con­firmed and con­se­crat­ed by the sacra­ment of mat­ri­mo­ny. Yet in join­ing their lives, the spous­es assume an active and cre­ative role in a life­long project. Their gaze now has to be direct­ed to the future that, with the help of God’s grace, they are dai­ly called to build. For this very rea­son, nei­ther spouse can expect the oth­er to be per­fect. Each must set aside all illu­sions and accept the oth­er as he or she actu­al­ly is: an unfin­ished prod­uct, need­ing to grow, a work in progress.

• The Church must sup­port dis­cern­ment and give its mem­bers rea­sons to choose mar­riage over a sin­gle life.

12. In speak­ing of mar­riage, Jesus refers us to yet anoth­er page of Gen­e­sis, which, in its sec­ond chap­ter, paints a splen­did and detailed por­trait of the cou­ple. First, we see the man, who anx­ious­ly seeks “a helper fit for him” (vv. 18, 20), capa­ble of alle­vi­at­ing the soli­tude which he feels amid the ani­mals and the world around him. The orig­i­nal Hebrew sug­gests a direct encounter, face to face, eye to eye, in a kind of silent dia­logue, for where love is con­cerned, silence is always more elo­quent than words. It is an encounter with a face, a “thou,” who reflects God’s own love and is man’s “best pos­ses­sion, a helper fit for him and a pil­lar of sup­port,” in the words of the bib­li­cal sage (Sir 36:24).

33 Free­dom of choice makes it pos­si­ble to plan our lives and to make the most of our­selves. Yet if this free­dom lacks noble goals or per­son­al dis­ci­pline, it degen­er­ates into an inabil­i­ty to give one­self gen­er­ous­ly to oth­ers. Indeed, in many coun­tries where the num­ber of mar­riages is decreas­ing, more and more peo­ple are choos­ing to live alone or sim­ply to spend time togeth­er with­out cohab­it­ing.

35. As Chris­tians, we can hard­ly stop advo­cat­ing mar­riage sim­ply to avoid coun­ter­ing con­tem­po­rary sen­si­bil­i­ties, or out of a desire to be fash­ion­able or a sense of help­less­ness in the face of human and moral fail­ings. We would be depriv­ing the world of val­ues that we can and must offer. It is true that there is no sense in sim­ply decry­ing present-day evils, as if this could change things. Nor it is help­ful to try to impose rules by sheer author­i­ty. What we need is a more respon­si­ble and gen­er­ous effort to present the rea­sons and moti­va­tions for choos­ing mar­riage and the fam­i­ly, and in this way to help men and women bet­ter to respond to the grace that God offers them.

39. We treat affec­tive rela­tion­ships the way we treat mate­r­i­al objects and the envi­ron­ment: every­thing is dis­pos­able; every­one uses and throws away, takes and breaks, exploits and squeezes to the last drop. Then, good­bye. Nar­cis­sism makes peo­ple inca­pable of look­ing beyond them­selves, beyond their own desires and needs. Yet soon­er or lat­er, those who use oth­ers end up being used them­selves, manip­u­lat­ed and dis­card­ed by that same mind­set. It is also worth not­ing that breakups often occur among old­er adults who seek a kind of “inde­pen­dence” and reject the ide­al of grow­ing old togeth­er, look­ing after and sup­port­ing one anoth­er.

• The Church must assist those dis­cern­ing mar­riage learn how to love so that few­er divorces occur.

72. The sacra­ment of mar­riage is not a social con­ven­tion, an emp­ty rit­u­al or mere­ly the out­ward sign of a com­mit­ment. The sacra­ment is a gift giv­en for the sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion and sal­va­tion of the spous­es, since “their mutu­al belong­ing is a real rep­re­sen­ta­tion, through the sacra­men­tal sign, of the same rela­tion­ship between Christ and the Church. The mar­ried cou­ple are there­fore a per­ma­nent reminder for the Church of what took place on the cross; they are for one anoth­er and for their chil­dren wit­ness­es of the sal­va­tion in which they share through the sacra­ment.” Mar­riage is a voca­tion, inas­much as it is a response to a spe­cif­ic call to expe­ri­ence con­ju­gal love as an imper­fect sign of the love between Christ and the Church. Con­se­quent­ly, the deci­sion to mar­ry and to have a fam­i­ly ought to be the fruit of a process of voca­tion­al dis­cern­ment.

205. The Syn­od Fathers stat­ed in a num­ber of ways that we need to help young peo­ple dis­cov­er the dig­ni­ty and beau­ty of mar­riage. They should be helped to per­ceive the attrac­tion of a com­plete union that ele­vates and per­fects the social dimen­sion of exis­tence, gives sex­u­al­i­ty its deep­est mean­ing, and ben­e­fits chil­dren by offer­ing them the best con­text for their growth and devel­op­ment.

• Peo­ple rebel against God when they do not accept the gen­der they were born with.

56. Yet anoth­er chal­lenge is posed by the var­i­ous forms of an ide­ol­o­gy of gen­der that “denies the dif­fer­ence and reci­procity in nature of a man and a woman and envis­ages a soci­ety with­out sex­u­al dif­fer­ences, there­by elim­i­nat­ing the anthro­po­log­i­cal basis of the fam­i­ly. This ide­ol­o­gy leads to edu­ca­tion­al pro­grammes and leg­isla­tive enact­ments that pro­mote a per­son­al iden­ti­ty and emo­tion­al inti­ma­cy rad­i­cal­ly sep­a­rat­ed from the bio­log­i­cal dif­fer­ence between male and female. Con­se­quent­ly, human iden­ti­ty becomes the choice of the indi­vid­ual, one which can also change over time.”

285. Beyond the under­stand­able dif­fi­cul­ties which indi­vid­u­als may expe­ri­ence, the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was cre­at­ed, for “think­ing that we enjoy absolute pow­er over our own bod­ies turns, often sub­tly, into think­ing that we enjoy absolute pow­er over cre­ation… An appre­ci­a­tion of our body as male or female is also nec­es­sary for our own self-aware­ness in an encounter with oth­ers dif­fer­ent from our­selves.

•••

There is much more, too. It would hard­ly be pos­si­ble to be exhaus­tive. The pope says that the absence of a father is a detri­ment to the fam­i­ly life (55); that mar­riage requires total self-giv­ing (73); that edu­cat­ing chil­dren is a right of the par­ents, not the state (84); that prepa­ra­tion for mar­riage should include train­ing in chasti­ty (206); that sep­a­ra­tion is always a last resort (241); that the Church has a right, in its edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, to pro­claim its own teach­ing, as well as the right of con­sci­en­tious objec­tion (279), that the divorced and remar­ried can only par­tic­i­pate in the Church “in an incom­plete man­ner” (291); that those in a sin­ful sec­ond union must be called to repen­tance and con­ver­sion (297); and that the Church has the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­claim the truth of mar­riage as taught by Christ (307).

Any dis­cus­sion of the “con­tro­ver­sial” pas­sages in Amor­is Laeti­tia must reflect the whole of what Pope Fran­cis said, includ­ing in these oth­er pas­sages. The exhor­ta­tion needs to be read slow­ly and as a whole, not read­ing one pas­sage in iso­la­tion from oth­ers. I cite these sec­tions here for the sake of ref­er­ence, for those who will be involved in writ­ing about and dis­cussing this doc­u­ment with those acquain­tances, and those in the media, who will insist on mis­read­ing it.