Linda Plitt Donaldson

• He met with prisoners and called them brothers.
• He met with undocumented immigrants and referred to himself as a son of immigrants.
• He offered compassion to families who lost their loved ones on Sept. 11.
• He reminded people who were homeless that Jesus came into the world as part of a homeless family, and added that there is “no social or moral justification …for lack of housing.”
• He recognized the struggles of families and offered them encouragement.
• He brought his joy and hope to children in Harlem.
• He cautioned us against exclusion, reminding us that “God wants all his children to take part in the feast of the Gospel… to give the impression that it cannot take place in those who are not “part of our group,” who are not “like us,” is a dangerous temptation.
• He addressed policymakers, advocating for peace, promoting the common good, and caring for the poor and the environment.

Pope Francis has shown through word and deed that he is a man of peace, a man of poverty, and a man of justice. He is unafraid to walk in solidarity with the least among us and to speak truth to power. He would have made a wonderful social worker, and certainly serves as an inspiration for our field.

– Linda Plitt Donaldson is an associate professor at The Catholic University of America National Catholic School of Social Service.

John Grabowski

However, the narrative that he is not interested in family is belied by the Holy Father’s own actions. Consider the current Pope’s ministry in reference to Saint John Paul II, a man whom Pope Francis himself called the “pope of the family” at the Mass of his canonization. At the beginning of Saint John Paul II’s pontificate he called the 1980 Synod on family, which led to his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris consortio. At the beginning of Pope Francis’s pontificate he called two synods on family (last year’s Extraordinary Synod and this year’s Ordinary Synod). Since last December he has been devoting his weekly general audiences to an extended catechesis on family. He has chosen to signal his dedication to the family by fulfilling Pope Benedict XVI’s commitment to attend the World Meeting of Families this September in Philadelphia. Presumably the Pope’s catechesis and the input he receives from the Synod fathers will shape a forthcoming document (perhaps another Apostolic Exhortation) on family. These are not the actions of a man who is uninterested in the family or the Church’s ministry to it.

What is significant in Pope Francis’s pontificate is the way in which he has put the Church’s ministry to families in the context of the New Evangelization. In Evangelii gaudium (no. 3) he invited all Christians to a renewed encounter with the person of Christ. He then encouraged all the members of the Church to become “missionary disciples” and to actively share their faith: “The new evangelization calls for personal involvement on the part of each and every one of the baptized. Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization” (EG, no. 120). It is here that we find the big picture of Pope Francis’s vision for these events (both the World Meeting and the synods). In them he seeks to bring together the Church’s ministry to family with his programmatic emphasis on the New Evangelization. Christian families are called to be not just objects of the Church’s evangelizing mission, but active subjects and participants in it.

When the reporting on the Pope’s visit or the upcoming Synod fixates on particular issues, it might be helpful to keep this “big picture” in mind — the Holy Father certainly will.

— John S. Grabowski is an associate professor of moral theology/ethics at The Catholic University of America School of Theology and Religious Studies. Grabowski and his wife are one of two American member couples of the Pontifical Council for the Family. They will be participating in the World Meeting of Families. Grabowski has recently been appointed by Pope Francis as an expert (adiutor) of the forthcoming Synod of Bishops in Rome this October.

Melissa Moschella

The Pope spoke about “wounded families” — in particular, cases in which the matrimonial bond has been sundered and a new union has been formed. The Pope reminded us that, though “such a situation is contrary to the Christian Sacrament,” the Church’s approach to those living in these circumstances “always draws from a mother’s heart,” seeking to understand, heal, and save.  He encouraged all of us to be welcoming and compassionate to these families, especially for the sake of the children, noting that “they are the ones who suffer the most in these situations.” These children are especially in need of “an example of committed and exercised faith,” but we will not be able to provide this example “if we keep them at arm’s length from the life of the community, as if they are excommunicated.”

Here I think it’s worth clarifying a crucial point that many people do not fully understand: The inability to receive Communion does not imply that one is excommunicated. As Pope Francis emphasized during the audience, those “who have established a new relationship of cohabitation after the failure of the marital sacrament…are by no means excommunicated — they are not excommunicated! – and they should not be treated as such: they are still a part of the Church.” To be excommunicated is to be entirely outside the community of the Church, not merely to be unable to receive sacramental Communion due to an aspect of one’s moral life that is seriously contrary to the Church’s teachings.

As Benedict XVI put it during the 2012 World Meeting of Families, divorced and remarried Catholics “are not ‘excluded’ even though they cannot receive absolution or the Eucharist; … they are fully a part of the Church.” He goes on to say that these individuals “are participating in the Eucharist if they enter into a real communion with the Body of Christ. Even without ‘corporal’ reception of the sacrament, they can be spiritually united to Christ in his Body.” They can find meaning in the suffering inherent in their situation if “they come to see that suffering as a gift to the Church,” as “something that is experienced within the Church community for the sake of the great values of our faith.”

The Church, like Jesus her Founder, exists to save sinners, seeking gently yet firmly to help them amend their lives, welcoming and understanding them all the while. But as Pope Benedict XVI points out, it is not enough simply to say to those in a difficult marriage situation that “the Church loves them;” rather, “it is important that they should see and feel this love. I see here a great task for a parish, a Catholic community, to do whatever is possible to help them to feel loved and accepted.” This great task belongs to each and every one of us.

— Melissa Moschella is an assistant professor at The Catholic University of America School of Philosophy.

Lucia Silecchia

Siblings are on my mind as we have recently celebrated the feast day of St. Martha — one of my favorites! St. Martha is certainly the unofficial patron of the busy and the worried, but she is also among the New Testament’s most famous siblings. She squabbled with her sister, mourned her brother, and with them offered Christ friendship and the “many details of hospitality” for which she is so well known. We know little more about this trio except that they were sisters and brother to each other, and beloved friends of Christ.

Pope Francis has spoken often about the relationships between siblings. He himself was the oldest of five children, with two sisters and two brothers. Only one now survives, his youngest sister Maria Elena. When Jorge Bergoglio was elected Pope, a reporter asked Maria Elena whether she felt as though she had lost a brother. She replied, “To tell the truth, it’s more like I’ve gained millions of new brothers and sisters, and I’m trying to figure out how to share my brother with all these new members of the family.”

Last August, Pope Francis shared with the world the news of a tragedy that had befallen his brother’s family: An automobile accident had injured his brother’s son, and killed this nephew’s wife and two sons, one an infant and one a young toddler. As he offered his thanks for prayers and condolences, Pope Francis reminded us, “The Pope has a family too.”

More recently, in his discourses on family life woven through his general audiences this year, Pope Francis devoted an entire audience to the relationships among siblings. He said, “ ‘Brother’ and ‘sister’ are words that Christianity really loves” — and indeed this is true. How many times in liturgical celebrations, in sacred songs, and in religious discourse do we describe bonds of love and affection in these terms?

Pope Francis mourned the account of Cain and Abel’s fratricidal conflict and the ways in which, “when the fraternal relationship is destroyed, when the relationship between siblings is destroyed, the road is open to painful experiences of conflict, of betrayal, of hate.” And yet, he also pointed to the beauty of sibling relationships happily lived, calling these relationships “the great school of freedom and peace,” and observing that “among siblings, human coexistence is learned, how one must live in society.”

In a particular way, he praised the importance of caring for siblings who are weak, noting that “[f]amilial fraternity shines in a special way when we see the care, the patience, the affection that envelop the weakest little brother or sister, sick or physically challenged. There are countless brothers and sisters who do this, throughout the world. … This work of helping among siblings is beautiful.”

And, indeed, it is. The relationship among brothers and sisters is unique. Unlike other relationships, there are few, if any, legal rights and responsibilities that run between siblings. These relationships are not freely chosen and they often involve those who find themselves living vastly different lives far away from each other. Yet, for many, the relationships between sisters and brothers are the longest relationships of their lives. Siblings are those who share our pasts. Our own history is entrusted to our siblings in a way it is entrusted to no one else, as our sisters and brothers share our childhoods, our parents, the homes of our youth, and our memories. If we are lucky, they also share our futures and grow old with us. As my own sister and brother walk life’s path with me, I know that together we hold each other’s past, share each other’s present, and hope for each other’s future.

So, it should be no surprise that when Pope Francis speaks of the bonds among the people of God, he speaks of it as the relationship among siblings. He says, “Having a brother, a sister, who loves you is a deep, precious, irreplaceable experience. Christian fraternity happens in the same way.” This is no mere analogy, but Pope Francis’s prayer and hope that as children who share the same Father, we see each other as sister and brother “because the word and the example of the Lord tell us that we are all brothers and sisters.”

—     Lucia Silecchia is a professor of law at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. She also is director of the International Human Rights Summer Law Program in Rome.

Melissa Moschella

Those who have seen the movie “The Vow” may be familiar with the Carpenters’ story, but the movie doesn’t do it justice (the book is much better). Ten weeks after their wedding and less than two years after they met, Kim and Krickitt were in a car accident, which left Krickitt in a coma for four months and damaged her memory. While much of Krickitt’s memory returned, the two years prior to the accident — the time during which she and Kim had met, fallen in love and gotten married — were permanently erased. Social workers suggested that Kim should get a divorce, a move that would relieve him of responsibility for hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. Kim, however, would not even consider it: “I had made my vows to Krickitt and there was no way I would ever have abandoned her.” While remaining faithful to Krickitt in these circumstances was difficult for Kim, Krickitt’s challenge was even greater: “When I came round from the coma, I had no memory of this whirlwind romance. My parents told me that I was married to this man, and they wouldn’t lie to me, so I knew that I must have loved him deeply. But I had no feelings for him at all…” Still, she said, “I had made my vows in front of my family and friends, to stay together, for good and for bad, in sickness and in health.” When Krickitt was well enough to return to her New Mexico home with Kim, to a place she had no memory of, with a man she was just beginning to get to know, things were rocky, to say the least. Yet Krickitt knew that Kim was her husband and was committed to being faithful to him, as this moving journal entry reveals: “Dear Lord, I really want to get back with Kim and get our new life going again.  I am relying on you to restore all of my feelings for our relationship…. Please strengthen our marriage and make it even stronger than it was in the beginning.” At the advice of a counselor, Kim and Krickitt began going out on “dates” to build new memories together. And it helped. As Krickitt explains, “Slowly and steadily, we created those memories together, and everything else slowly started to fall into place. Slowly, over time, my love did grow for Kim deeply, but it was never a fluffy, gooey falling-in-love feeling again… My heart didn’t skip beats; I didn’t feel swept off my feet. I would love to have felt that, but it isn’t the truth — I made a choice to love him.’

Krickitt’s words — “I made a choice to love him” — are the secret to their success in rebuilding a happy marriage. And they are equally the secret to success in any marriage. Though less dramatic than what Kim and Krickitt went through, there are times in every marriage when the feeling of love is absent and what remains is simply the commitment, the deliberate choice, to love one’s spouse. The opposite approach to marriage, in which marriage is all about emotional satisfaction and lasts only as long as the feelings of love remain, is at the heart of the crisis of marriage in our culture. This approach, in turn, is based on another great lie of our culture: the false view that emotions are the deepest and truest indicators of our identity, and that true authenticity means following wherever our emotions lead. But emotions are often more likely to be a reflection of the amount of sleep we got last night than of the deepest core of our identity.  It’s through reasoned judgment and reflection, not emotion, that we discover the bedrock values and commitments that form the core of our moral identity, and authenticity means being true to those values and commitments regardless of where the winds of emotion blow. Likewise true freedom is most perfectly manifested in standing by our commitments. Fidelity is the perfection of freedom, not the antithesis of it, even though sometimes it may seem burdensome. There must have been moments in which Kim and Krickitt felt their commitment as a burden and wished that they were free of it, but in remaining faithful to their vows, they showed the transcendence of human freedom over the limits of time and space, the vicissitudes of outward circumstances and even the inner pull of emotions, and in doing so achieved a deep love and happiness that would otherwise have been impossible. It’s this achievement that makes their story so inspirational to all who hear it.

— Melissa Moschella is an assistant professor at The Catholic University of America School of Philosophy.

Chad Pecknold

In his “Meeting with Families Address” at the Mall of Asia Arena last January, Pope Francis reminded the people of the Philippines that the family is a gift from God, and gifts from God are often threatened. He spoke to the people of the Philippines of the dangers which threatened Jesus and Mary, and how Joseph gathered up his young family, and fled to Egypt, finally settling in Nazareth. “So too, in our time,” Pope Francis told the crowd, “God calls upon us to recognize the dangers threatening our own families and to protect them from harm.” And then the Holy Father gave one of his most profound and penetrating warnings yet about America’s own struggle to understand the nature and meaning of marriage and the family:

“Let us be on guard against colonization by new ideologies. There are forms of ideological colonization which are out to destroy the family. They are not born of dreams, of prayers, of closeness to God or the mission which God gave us…they are forms of colonization. Let’s not lose the freedom of the mission which God has given us, the mission of the family. Just as our peoples, at a certain moment of their history, were mature enough to say “no” to all forms of political colonization, so too in our families we need to be very wise, very shrewd, very strong, in order to say “no” to all attempts at an ideological colonization of our families. We need to ask Saint Joseph, the friend of the angel, to send us the inspiration to know when we can say “yes” and when we have to say ‘no.'”

Later he identifies the threat to the family as coming from those who would “redefine the very institution of marriage.” And the pope says that these efforts are in turn fueled “by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.” There is, in other words, a kind of atheistic materialism which absolutizes relativity, and relativizes truth; which considers every standard arbitrary except the one it chooses for itself. Yet this strikes at the heart of the American experiment in “ordered Liberty.”

When liberty means the unfettered pursuit of anything we desire, the human soul is not liberated. It is merely enslaved by infinite desire. And this is what Pope Francis means by “ideological colonization.” In the context of the Philippines, whose people understood the ways in which political colonization had amounted to a kind of enslavement, so with the ideological colonization of the family.

America needs a similar message. Our very origins as a nation are bound up with the idea of an unjust colonization. But now the colonization is not political. It is ideological. Pope Francis says we must be “very wise, very shrewd, very strong, in order to say ‘no’ to all attempts at an ideological colonization of our families.” The very idea of an “ideological colonization of our families” is very wise, very shrewd, very strong. I expect it is an idea we will hear more about this fall.

—     Chad Pecknold is an associate professor of systematic theology at The Catholic University of America School of Theology and Religious Studies.