Cardinal Walter Kasper

Pope Francis: No Change in Doctrine on Marriage

In a word intended to reassure conservatives, Pope Francis told the bishops gathered in the Vatican Synod on the family Tuesday that Church teaching on marriage is “still valid,” while also urging them to broaden their horizons, instead of focusing on internal questions such as Communion for the divorced and remarried.

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Pope Francis: Lifelong Marriage Is Not ‘a Quaint Relic of the Past’ but ‘God’s Dream’ for Humanity

The Pope said that Christian marriage is a cure for much of the solitude experienced by men and women in our own day. Our world, he said is characterized by loneliness and paradoxes. Today we enjoy “many sophisticated means of entertainment, but a deep and growing interior emptiness; many pleasures, but few loves; many liberties, but little freedom.” People need the family, even if they don’t realize it, Francis said.

Pope Francis (C) leads a mass for the opening of the synod on the family on October 4, 201