UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Thomas Reese | Apr. 8, 2016
If you are a layperson and want to read the pope’s apostolic exhortation on the family, skip the first three chapters and start with chapter 4. If you are a priest, moral theologian, or divorced Catholic, read chapter 8.
The 263-page exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”) was released at noon today at the Vatican, 6 A.M. Eastern Time.
The opening chapter is a scriptural reflection, but frankly it comes off as a collection of Scripture references that don’t really hang together well.
It is not that the chapter is bad; there are some good passages. For example, it is nice to see a positive exegesis of Genesis’s description of Eve as a helper fit for Adam. Later in chapter 4 he deals with St Paul’s wives “be subject to your husbands.”
The second chapter examines “the actual situation of families, in order to keep firmly grounded in reality.” This chapter, like the first chapter of the pope’s encyclical on the environment, reflects the pope’s insistence that facts matter.
I think it gives a realistic description of the state of family life, but there are few surprises.
One remarkable feature of this chapter is its call for “a healthy dose of self-criticism” in the church.
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