Publishing and making a “new” document of a pope immediately prompts the search for the reasons that it was written and, therefore, of its specific contribution to guiding and nourishing the life and testimony of Christian communities. This approach is not only desired but it is necessary. The respect with which it should be practiced defines the space in which a genuine ecclesial membership and responsible risk of the creativity that invites, not so much to respect but to the full identification, go together, supporting one another.
These dynamisms can be sustained and increased if reference to a text, in this case Amoris laetitia, is able to capture its profile completely, placing it in a long period that helps to understand that its “novelty” is not similar to a mushroom that, unexpectedly, peeps through the leaves in a forest, but rather to a new, vigorous branch of a centuries-old plant.
Going beyond the metaphor: it is my conviction that Amoris laetitia represents one of the most original contributions to a full reception of Vatican II, especially with regard to the presence of the Church in the world, capable to refresh an adequate understanding of this issue expressed by Gaudium et spes.
The decision to engage the entire ecclesial authority in a subject that could boast significant investments of ecclesial magisterium, at least in the short run, reveals interesting aspects of the Pope’s priorities, especially if one takes into account that the Secretariat of the Synod, its works finished in 2012, had drafted proposals for the next assembly that included in the first place “the Christological and anthropological themes with particular reference to the Council’s Constitution Gaudium et spes, 22.” The peculiar choice made by Pope Francis kept a special focus on the theme of the Church’s presence in the world, demonstrating, at the same time, the intention of re-evaluating the weight of theological systemic issues: with the family, one of the focal places of ecclesial and social life, placed in the center. It has been placed here – among “Some Problems of Special Urgency” that should be taken care of – by the Council itself (GS 47-52).
For these reasons, the precious fruits of the synodal assembly on the family relaunch a renewed receptive path of Gaudium et spes. Keeping with the peculiar accents of Pope Francis, the document reread reveals its original peculiar novelty in the second part, in which the ecclesial consciousness of the relevance of Christian message to the reality, to the problems and urgencies present everyday in human existence, is expressed. There is a belief behind that that the foundational reasons for the presence of the Church in the world and among people emerge directly from her “being the Church”: Gaudium et spes seems to be more than ever present in reclaiming this original profile of ecclesial subjectivity.
Accompanying Christians in this direction is one of the main ways that the Pope indicates to deal with the challenges of “epochal change” which is in progress. It must be acknowledged that the attitude of opposition between two models of marriage and family, worldly and Christian, has ended. The alternative of this is taking care of the difficult conditions in which many people today are challenged to jeopardize their own freedom while maintaining awareness of the conditions connected with the current historical atmosphere and, at the same time, keeping alive the promise of the good life and of the possible good.
This approach puts in place much more than some cosmetic restoration of pastoral practices. The correction of some paradigms long practiced in the activities of Christians in the world implies a renewed care, according to a double trajectory, of the constituent dimensions of the Church’s identity: the Church is enabled to be present in the world and among people for the very fact of “being the Church” and the more active her mission is here and now, the more she is the Church again.
Gilfredo Marengo
priest, professor of theological anthropology at
the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies
on Marriage and Family in Rome