Pope Francis remembered for lasting mark on church's marriage and family ministry

(OSV News) -- The impact of Pope Francis' papacy upon Catholic marriage and family life will be extensively studied, debated and commentated upon in the weeks following his death on April 21.

While the late pontiff envisioned both matrimony and the family, as the domestic or household church, being a lifelong journey of faith, his specific words and actions supporting that vision during his 12-year tenure won Pope Francis both supporters and detractors.

Most dramatic, perhaps, was the reaction to the Dec. 18, 2023, release of "Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings," an eight-page declaration from the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith declaring Catholic priests could bless persons in "irregular situations," such as same-sex unions and divorced and remarried couples, with the condition that extension of a blessing not be confused with the church's teaching on sacramental marriage, nor occur within a liturgical celebration.

While not directly from Pope Francis' own pen, "Fiducia Supplicans" nonetheless rapidly became perhaps one of the most consequential documents of his papacy, with secular headlines quick to declare a doctrinal shift from a 2,000-plus-year-old institution not characterized by the sudden or unexpected.

The document itself emphasized that the extension of a such a blessing didn't mean the Catholic Church's doctrine on sexual morality -- or its understanding of marriage -- had changed; nevertheless, it became widely panned by African and Eastern Catholic churches, and led the Coptic Orthodox Church to suspend ecumenical dialogue with the Catholic Church after consulting with other Orthodox churches.

During his papacy, Pope Francis keenly realized challenges faced by contemporary couples -- and that the church's approach to forming couples for the sacrament of matrimony needed an overhaul rooted in the vision of his predecessor, St. John Paul II. He responded by overseeing the 2022 release by the Vatican's Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life of "Catechumenal Pathways for Married Life: Pastoral Guidelines for Local Churches."

"Just as the catechumenate is part of the sacramental process for the baptism of adults, so too may the preparation for marriage form an integral part of the whole sacramental procedure of marriage," Pope Francis wrote in his preface to the new "marriage catechumenate" guidelines. "Couples who receive a superficial preparation run the real risk of celebrating a marriage which is null and void, or one with such a weak foundation that it 'falls apart' in a short space of time and cannot withstand even the first inevitable crises."

"Pope Francis said the same things we were saying," commented Mary-Rose Verret, who -- with her husband Ryan Verret -- founded Witness to Love, a national ministry that offers local churches marriage formation tools based in personal accompaniment and facilitating couples' growth in virtue.

"You can't expect people who are coming from divorced homes; who don't know who Jesus is; who don't know what a sacrament is; who have so many obstacles to having a healthy, happy, holy marriage -- you just can't expect them to fall into being happily married," she said. "It's not going to happen. You have to walk with them. You have to accompany them, well beyond the wedding day."

Ryan Verret agreed with his wife's assessment.

"Pope Francis built upon a vision that was initiated by Pope St. John Paul II. 'Catechumenate' -- just that word makes us all realize, or at least we've witnessed, serving over 90 dioceses -- that the church we were born into and the country we were born into really doesn't exist anymore," he said. "An engaged couple can't just come to the parish and have them say, 'Let's just go through this workbook and then you'll be ready for a sacrament.'"

As a marriage realist, Pope Francis earned the Verrets' appreciation.

"The legacy of Pope Francis on marriage and family life is really opening the doors to the reality of the challenges that couples face today, putting a spotlight on that, and not sugar-coating the challenges of today's couples," Mary-Rose Verret shared. "In the history of the world, couples who present themselves for the sacrament of marriage have probably never had more challenges and more obstacles and a weaker foundation than they do today. And if we don't acknowledge that, we're not serving the couples; we're not serving the church; and we're not serving Christ."

The marriage catechumenate developed out of Pope Francis' 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation "Amoris Laetitia" ("The Joy of Love") following the 2014-2015 Synods on the Family, which the pontiff hoped would "enliven the entire Church in her joyful commitment to evangelize families, alongside families."

But "Amoris Laetitia" also generated its own controversy by alluding -- in some footnotes sprinkled amid more than 260 pages of text -- to the possibility of circumstances where divorced and civilly remarried Catholics lacking an annulment might be able to receive the Eucharist.

In the typically pastoral approach that characterized his papacy, Pope Francis counseled that the church's rules aren't meant to hurt, but to help couples "grow in the life of grace."

But "confusion" followed, in the experience of Catholic author and speaker Rose Sweet, whose ministry accompanies divorced Catholics.

"In general, Pope Francis did not like -- he used the word often -- rigidity," she said.

"He didn't like crystal clear -- because he thought it left no room for certain cases," Sweet said. "But there is a time to be crystal clear and black and white, and there is a time not to. He liked to leave room -- and there are other people who like to have all doubt removed."

Sweet felt that for divorce ministry, the situation could have benefitted from the specificity Pope Francis applied to the marriage annulment process -- the church's investigation into and determination of whether a sacramental marriage actually took place -- which he reformed in 2015. Those changes eliminated an automatic clerical "second review" before granting a declaration of nullity; granted bishops the authority to declare nullity themselves in straightforward cases; allowed appeals to be made at the local level; and confirmed the process should be free.

"He was very clear on that. He said, 'There's some people -- here's who they are' and named four or five different qualifying things. It was bullet point clear," Sweet said. "So the dioceses were able to take that and properly run with it. But divorced and (civilly) remarried (people) for holy Communion -- when you leave it on an individual basis, and don't follow up with any instruction after that, people also take it and run."

While Sweet found Pope Francis' "heart and effort" commendable, pastoral issues surrounding divorce remain, in her view, "a hotbed of confusion, and frustration, and anger -- and it's as bad as it ever was. It's still a big, hot mess."

A frequent theme of Pope Francis' teaching was the marginalized, and those discarded by society. He wasn't, however, just referring to strangers on the street -- he urged families to look within their own midst -- to the aged.

So in 2021, Francis established the annual World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, coinciding with the feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary's parents and Jesus' grandparents, Sts. Joachim and Anne.

"Grandparents, so many times, are forgotten," the pontiff said, "and we forget this richness of safeguarding and transmitting roots."

When Father Damian Ference, vicar for evangelization in the Diocese of Cleveland, heard Pope Francis' letter for the inaugural World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, first he preached on it.

Then he acted.

"I said, 'What do you think if we did something for grandparents and seniors?'" he recalled asking his staff. "And they said, 'Let's do it.' That's where it started -- so it was the Holy Father's letter that got us going."

The result was the Anne and Joachim Grandparenting Workshops 1.0 in the spring of 2022, with over 400 grandparents in attendance.

"We've had clergy that have said, 'It was my grandparents that impacted me,'" said Terri Yohman, director of the diocese's Office of Marriage and Family Ministry, "and so their faith walk, it's really important for them (grandparents and elders) to be able to share that."

A summit followed, and in 2024, the "2.0 version" of that effort extended to grandparents in nursing homes. Now a fully-established Grandparenting Ministry, the emphasis is upon the intergenerational.

"It's important to be part of a youth group. But it's also important that young people know the wisdom of old people -- and that old people be inspired by the idealism and enthusiasm of the young," Father Ference said. "Pope Francis mentioned quite a few times, you can't just put the old people in a nursing home and forget about them."

The Grandparenting Workshops and Ministry have since spread to other dioceses, with information requests coming from as far away as Australia and the Philippines.

"I think in some ways, Pope Francis was writing to himself in that letter," said Father Ference, recalling the pontiff's first message for World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. "Because he was encouraging everyone who's older: You always are going to be called to be an evangelizer, and share your faith. You don't retire from discipleship."