Bishops end Vatican week on family life asking why young people are not marrying

Presidents of bishops' conferences and experts in family ministry who met at the Vatican from October 7 to 14 closed their week of talks on marriage and family life with commitments to pay closer attention to the situations families face today. The meeting, called by Pope Leo XIV to examine how Amoris Laetitia is being applied, drew 115 presidents of bishops' conferences, family ministry experts, leaders of Eastern Catholic churches and lay people. Pope Francis signed the document in 2016.

The meeting ended October 14, the same day it became known that Leo XIV had undergone surgery on October 13 to remove cancerous tissue from a lung. The pope remains in the hospital, and the meeting's summary report will not be released until he reviews it himself, so its publication date remains uncertain.

Amoris Laetitia still challenges the Church

"In a world increasingly shaped by robots, anonymity and isolation, the family has a prophetic role to play not only in society but in the future of humanity," Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta said at the close of the meeting. Scicluna and other participants said Amoris Laetitia is as relevant now as when it was published a decade ago.

Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa, a consultor to the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, said the discussions showed above all a desire to remain faithful to the Gospel, without treating mercy and truth as irreconcilable principles.

Organizers described a world very different from that of 10 years ago: economic uncertainty, loss of confidence that marriage lasts, migration, poverty, separation and war. Amoris Laetitia offers no universal solutions but urges Church leaders to understand what each family actually experiences and to develop pastoral responses suited to their particular circumstances.

Beyond the controversies

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Amoris Laetitia has often been linked to disputes over how it should be interpreted. But he said its underlying message has already changed the way Catholics talk about marriage and the family.

"Most Catholics who know anything about Amoris Laetitia know it from the footnotes, from the controversies that surrounded it," Coakley told Catholic News Service on October 14. "But there is so much more to this document." Its emphasis on listening and accompaniment, he said, is now part of the Church's everyday pastoral vocabulary.

Young people and marriage

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, vice president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the Church needs to look closely at why young people are increasingly hesitant to marry. He cited economic pressure, uncertainty about the future and a sense that they are not ready for a lifelong commitment.

The challenge for local churches, Flores said, is to build renewed confidence that a happy married life is possible, without assuming that the same pastoral response works everywhere in the world.

Support that continues after the wedding

Flores said couples need support well beyond their wedding day. Marriage preparation programs, however thorough, cannot anticipate every challenge a couple will meet. Couples who have been married longer, including those who have come through difficulties, can help sustain younger families.

Coakley made a similar point, noting that priests continue their formation after ordination while marriage preparation usually ends at the wedding. "Reality is always changing, and the Church needs to continue to accompany these young families, these more mature families," he told Catholic News Service.

Tribunals, annulments and synodality

During the week the bishops discussed how marriage tribunals work, access to annulment procedures and the need to form the consciences of those who support families. They also took up the relationship between Amoris Laetitia and synodality, particularly the need for families to take an active part in the life and decisions of the Church rather than simply receive pastoral guidance.

The family as the first school of love

At the Mass that closed the meeting, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle read a homily prepared by Leo XIV. In it the pope urged Catholics to recognize the family as the first school of love and to support married couples and families throughout their lives.

The pope called for a Church that is a "family of families," where young couples are encouraged, parents find support, older people are valued for their wisdom and those going through a crisis are welcomed with affection rather than judgment.

"In this way, the love lived in the family, with its moments of struggle, mistakes and failures, but also with the wonder of its daily and unpredictable life, becomes the first school of human affection, the first precious and irreplaceable apprenticeship in the 'joy of love,'" Tagle read from the pope's homily. "That is why we must recognize and support the efforts of so many families who live their vocation and mission day by day, without fanfare, but at times with heroic fidelity."

Questions left open

Some participants said the meeting did not settle every question about how the Church should respond to the changing realities of family life. Father Stanislaus Chu Ilo, a Nigerian priest and theologian based in Chicago, said the discussions showed the Church can acknowledge unresolved questions and move forward at the same time.

"You can live in complexity," he said. "There are always two sides to everything." The meeting, he said, offered hope that by paying closer attention to the fragility of family life the Church can better recognize God's presence in the uncertainties that shape its future.