Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Pope Leo XIV began this morning’s general audience, just eight days after undergoing lung surgery, saying, “The first think I would like to say is thank you!. Thank you for the support of your prayers. Thanks be to God for His generosity. Let us all renew our trust in God’s goodness and mercy.”
The pontiff was welcomed under a light rain by a festive crowd in St Peter’s Square, which he toured in the popemobile before the start of the audience, amid cheers, smiles, and blessings for the children.
Leo XIV was serene and smiling before thousands of the faithful in his second public appearance after Sunday’s Angelus.
Just three days ago,he saidthat he would “gradually” resume his activities, while his apostolic journey to Latin America, scheduled for 7–17 November 2026,withvisits to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru,is stillon,after hereceived the green light from his doctors.
Catechesis on the family inGaudium et Spes
Today, in a catechesis delivered from the steps of St Peter’s Basilica, Leo continued his series on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, specifically the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, on the Church in the modern world.
Thepopedevotedhis reflection to the “most pressing contemporary problems” highlighted in the second part of the document,with focuson marriage and the family, to which the “well-being of the individual and of human and Christian society” is “intimatelyconnected”.
The document does not merely reaffirm their values and aims, but proposes a renewed conception of marriage as an “intimate partnership of married life and love” and of the “human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each another”.
Such “mutual self-giving of man and woman [. . .] underlies the requirement for ‘total fidelity’ and the ‘unbreakable oneness’ of the spouses, finding vivid expression in the procreation and upbringing of children,” said the pontiff. The Sacrament is “governed and enriched by Christ’s redeeming power”.
Children, "the supreme gift of marriage"
“Not limited to erotic attraction, which it nonetheless encompasses, conjugal love involves the entire will of the spouses, enlivening the affections of their hearts and expressing itself through sentiments and gestures of tenderness,” he noted.
“Embracing the good of the whole person of both man and woman, who are equal in dignity, this love pervades the entire life of the spouses, finding expression in acts proper exclusively to marriage,”Leo added.
“Furthermore, the fruitfulness of conjugal love finds expression in the procreation of children,” whichGaudium et Spesdescribes as “the supreme gift of marriage.”In fact, spouses have the task of “transmitting andeducatinghuman life”.
“[T]hey are bound to allow themselves to be guided by a sound judgement regarding their own good and that of their children, whether already born or yet to be born. Such a judgement, which, in the final analysis, the spouses themselves must form before God, requires that their conscience conform to divine law, as interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church”.
Family, the "foundation of society"
The Council, Leo said, excludes the existence of “a true contradiction … between the divine laws pertaining to the transmission of life, and those pertaining to authentic conjugal love”.
“From this it follows both that ‘from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care’, renouncing ‘abortion and infanticide’; and that ‘the acts themselves which are proper to conjugal love and which are exercised in accord with genuine human dignity must be honoured with great reverence’,” the pope explained.
Lastly, the pope noted that, according to the teachings of Gaudium et Spes, the family is defined as “a school of deeper humanity” and “the foundation of society”. For this reason, he appealed to all those who hold social responsibilities, in the political and cultural spheres, to “work efficiently for the welfare of marriage and the family”.
For the Church, this is an “urgent” commitment, said the pope citing the recent events marking 10 years of Amoris laetitia, “as shown by the pastoral concern of the Popes who have succeeded one another since the last Council, right up to the two Synodal Assemblies convened by Pope Francis, which were addressed again in recent days by the Heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences.”
