Pope Leo XIV is aware that among the vocations to which men and women are called by God, marriage is one of the “noblest and highest”.
He said the same last October on the 10th anniversary of the saint’s canonization. Lewis and Zélie Martin, parents of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Now, the Pope has launched a process to address both marital crises and the growing fear among young people to marry and start a family.
Leo XIV has summoned the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences to Rome this October to gather feedback on an issue he considers important not only for the Church but also for society.
In preparation for the high-level meeting, the Vatican held a study day on Tuesday titled “Marriage, Faith and the Sacrament of Munas Dosendi” In Cassina Pio IV.
Organized by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, this initiative brought together by invitation approximately 75 participants, including representatives of the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia, as well as rectors, lecturers and others involved in the formation of future clergy.
According to the Dicastery, the study day was dedicated to the formation of priests with “young people, married couples and couples married in the faith”.
How can the Church form pastors capable of accompanying young people, engaged couples, and spouses so that they can live out Christian marriage as an authentic experience of faith in a cultural context marked by secularism? Several speakers addressed that question, including Father Andrea Bozzolo, rector of the Pontifical Salesian University.
Speaking with ACI Prensa, EWTN News’ Spanish-language sister service, the Italian priest – who teaches theology of marriage at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family – stressed the urgent need to form priests who are willing to accompany young people and help them live out Christian marriage as a true event of faith rather than a mere “formality or social sacrament.”
According to Bozzolo, in large sectors of contemporary society, marriage is no longer regarded as a decisive moment in the formation of a family.
He said, “For many couples today, marriage appears to be a less decisive step in the emergence of the family contract.”
In that context, he said, cohabitation has become widespread as a kind of testing phase before marriage. For many young people, the strength of that relationship, tested in daily life, “eventually becomes a condition for considering access to marriage,” he said.
Bozzolo explained that this mentality leads to the now widespread phenomenon of couples living together before going to the altar.
Unlike in previous decades, when real unions were presented as an ideological alternative to marriage, today “they are often understood as a preparatory path,” he said.
In what he described as a “fluid society”, cohabitation often serves as the first family experience, open to consolidation into a more stable relationship over time.
He said, “The purpose of cohabitation in most cases is not to exclude the marriage contract, but to verify its feasibility.” The increase in isolation also reflects this way of understanding bonding, he said.
Not blaming, but not belittling either.
In response to this reality, Bozzolo said that the Church “should not blame” young people who ask for marriage after living together, but that it should not “trivialize” premarital cohabitation, because “that is not the right way” to approach the altar.
He also called on the Church to break stereotypes that present love as “a simple emotion”.
He said, “Love has spiritual value – not just psychological value – and that is why marriage is a privileged medium for the revelation of God’s face in the Bible.”
Bozzolo stressed the need for priestly formation that helps future priests to rediscover the decisive value of marriage as a public and sacred act.
He said, “The public and religious expression of consent is not today generally regarded as something that substantially affects the stability of the bond” – a reality he described as “a pastoral challenge of the first order.”
Marriage is not a simple social process
For this reason, he said, it is essential for the Church to prepare priests who can accompany young people in a journey of faith that does not present Christian marriage as a “simple social process”.
The goal, Bozzolo explained, is to help priests accompany married couples so that they “learn to recognize God’s presence and action in the concrete history of their union.”
Such accompaniment, he said, requires a “creative approach” that draws on biblical knowledge, theological understanding, awareness of contemporary cultural trends, and the ability to listen carefully to the real experiences of families.
A current problem among couples, he said, is the tendency to make the relationship autocratic and place expectations on the husband-wife bond that the other person cannot fulfill alone.
Bozzolo said, “We cannot put the entire responsibility for our happiness on our spouse, because he or she will disappoint us. For that, we have Jesus, the true Messiah.”
He emphasized that only in good faith is it possible to live a marriage in a healthy, realistic way that is open to impermanence, without making the other person the ultimate source of meaning.
For that reason, and in direct relation to the formation of future priests, Bozzolo highlighted the need to create formation paths in seminaries that integrate these dimensions and prepare priests for authentic marriage ministry, rooted in life and not limited to doctrinal frameworks.
The last time a Pope called together all the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences was in February 2019, when Pope Francis gathered them to address the wound of sex abuse in the Church. That meeting marked a change in global perception of the problem and made it possible to outline a long-term strategy.
this story was first published By ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language affiliate of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
