Digital Edition
The joy of love?
07
Aug
Aug
It’s time to wrestle with church teaching on sex. Here’s how.
The Amoris Laetitia Family Year marks a good opportunity for Catholics to reconsider how we talk about sex and family life.
“There’s a whole host of changing issues around what constitutes a family, and I think the Catholic Church brings a lot to that conversation that’s really valuable,” says Brianne Jacobs, who teaches theology and religious studies at Emmanuel College in Boston.
It’s fertile, albeit perhaps volatile, to ask for lay Catholics’ advice while the bishops and church hierarchy reflect on family life, Jacobs says. And the church right now is in an excellent place to start having these conversations. Marking the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ exhortation on family life, Amoris Laetitia (On Love in the Family), the March announcement of the 2021–2022 Amoris Laetitia Family Year called on Catholics to reflect on the “beauty and joy of conjugal and family love.” And, perhaps more consequentially, the Vatican is simultaneously ramping up a global synodal process through the fall of 2023, calling on all dioceses to have local synods, which are essentially listening sessions for Catholics and their pastoral concerns.