Pope Francis on Love in the Family

[Cardinal Francis George] said that it is insufficient simply to drop the truth on people and then smugly walk away. Rather, he insisted, you must accompany those you have instructed, committing yourself to helping them integrate the truth that you have shared. I thought of this ... often as I was reading Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. If I might make bold to summarize a complex 264-page document, I would say that Pope Francis wants the truths regarding marriage, sexuality, and family to be unambiguously declared, but that he also wants the Church’s ministers to reach out in mercy and compassion to those who struggle to incarnate those truths in their lives.

Bishop Robert Barron has a great overview of the Pope's exhortation "The Joy of Love" about love in the family ... which brings together the results of the two Synods on the family convoked by Pope Francis in 2014 and 2015.

Quicker summary, based on reading Bishop Barron's piece — the Pope is Catholic and the Truth, it ain't a-changin'. However, being Pope Francis, which is to say a good Catholic, he also counsels gentle methods to help people come to a knowledge of that truth in a disordered world or relationship.

Will I be reading this? Yes, indeed. Though it's long so it may be a bit before I do.

Here's where you can read or download the pdf.

If you don't want to wade through the pdf, Crux has the document chapter by chapter.