Family First: Pope Leo XIV’s Mission
“We have the family, the ‘society’ of a man’s house — a society very small, one must admit, but none the less a true society, and one older than any State. Consequently, it has rights and duties peculiar to itself which are quite independent of the State.” ― Pope Leo XIII, Rerum novarum
It has been such a joy watching our new Holy Father take up the mantle of St. Peter and reveal to the world his unique personality and charism as the shepherd of the global Church.
Although Pope Leo XIV looked slightly nervous when he first walked out on the Loggia after his election, he seems to have made the transition to pontiff with remarkable grace. As John Pinheiro notes in this analysis of Pope Leo’s first few weeks as pope, the Holy Father seems to be carefully charting a course as a “unifying” figure. Even his choice of name suggests this, as his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII is a remarkably popular pope among both liberals (for his emphasis on social justice) and conservatives (for his doctrinal orthodoxy, and resuscitation of Thomism).
As the president of Human Life International, I have been delighted by many of Pope Leo’s statements and reflections. It seems worth highlighting what already seems to be one recurrent theme of the Holy Father’s pontificate: the central importance of the family, and the role of parents, in creating a healthy society and imparting the faith to future generations.
Family is a Cradle for the Future
As Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass for thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly just a few days ago, on June 1st, he declared families “the cradle of the future of humanity.”
Pope Leo stressed the fundamental role of family relationships in God’s plan for salvation. He emphasized that marriage represents “not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful.”
The Holy Father cited Pope St. Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, noting that conjugal love “makes you one flesh and enables you, in the image of God, to bestow the gift of life.” And he noted, every single one of us is alive only “thanks to a relationship, a free and freeing relationship of human kindness and mutual care.” Even if that relationship was less than perfect (as it always must be, as it involves fallen, broken human beings), we could not survive infancy without receiving the gift of gratuitous care from others. To the extent that humans bestow this loving care on one another we imitate the infinite love of God for each of us.
In his homily, the Holy Father reflected on that beautiful passage from the Gospel of John in which Christ prays that His disciples will be “one,” just as He and the Father are one. Pope Leo meditated on how this “oneness” is manifested in a unique way within the sacrament of marriage, firstly in the oneness of the husband and wife, and then the oneness of the community of love that is established as they welcome children into the world.
“Dear friends, if we love one another in this way, grounded in Christ, who is ‘the Alpha and the Omega,’ ‘the beginning and the end’ (cf. Rev 22:13), we will be a sign of peace for everyone, in society and the world,” said the Holy Father.
Sanctity in Family life
Pope Leo mentioned Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, and of Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi. Both of these couples lived “ordinary” lives, and yet achieved a high degree of sanctity, which had a profound impact on their children, and ultimately the entire world.
The Martins were not only the parents of St. Thérèse, a Doctor of the Church, but also Blessed Leonie Martin. The couple’s three other daughters all joined the religious life. Meanwhile, Luigi and Maria Quattrocchi had four children. One of their children, Enrichetta, has been declared venerable, and the other three all joined the religious life, one as a Benedictine priest, another as a Trappist monk, and another as a Benedictine nun.
“By pointing to [these couples] as exemplary witnesses of married life,” Pope Leo said in his homily, “the Church tells us that today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love and to defeat, thanks to its unifying and reconciling power, the forces that break down relationships and societies.”
He exhorted parents to be “examples of integrity to your children, acting as you want them to act, educating them in freedom through obedience, always seeing the good in them and finding ways to nurture it.”
The Holy Father also emphasized the family’s role in transmitting faith, declaring that “in the family, faith is handed on together with life, generation after generation. It is shared like food at the family table and like the love in our hearts.”
Respecting Human Dignity Blooms a Society of Love
In other remarks, the Holy Father repeatedly emphasized the centrality of the family in establishing a just, peaceful society, based upon the dignity of the human person.
Speaking from the Apostolic Palace on May 16th, in his first address to the Vatican diplomatic corps, he underlined the foundational role of the traditional family in society. “It is the responsibility of government leaders to work to build harmonious and peaceful civil societies,” Pope Leo said. “This can be achieved above all by investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman, ‘a small but genuine society, and prior to all civil society.’”
At the core of Catholic social teaching is the idea that every human being is made in the image and likeness of God. “No one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person,” Pope Leo said in his remarks, “especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly, from the sick to the unemployed, citizens and immigrants alike.”
He added, “All of us, in the course of our lives, can find ourselves healthy or sick, employed or unemployed, living in our native land or in a foreign country, yet our dignity always remains unchanged: it is the dignity of a creature willed and loved by God.
It is worth noting that in the remarks quoted above, Pope Leo XIV also reaffirmed core Catholic teaching opposing same-sex marriage, saying that the family is founded on the “stable union between a man and a woman.” This is hardly surprising, but it is gratifying to see the Holy Father drawing the link between the breakdown of the traditional family, and the loss of the sense of human dignity, especially in the neglect or even murder of the preborn, elderly, and sick.
Our Strength is in The charity of Christ
At times, Pope Leo noted in the same remarks to the diplomatic corps that the Church must speak truth using “blunt language that may initially create misunderstanding.” In other words, the Church must not back down on Her teaching, or compromise on important moral truths.
However, he added, truth can never be separated from charity, which always has at its root “a concern for the life and well-being of every man and woman.” Ultimately, every proclamation of the truth is not simply “the affirmation of abstract and disembodied principles,” but rather “an encounter with the person of Christ himself, alive in the midst of the community of believers.”
In this way, although truth may at first seem blunt or uncomfortable, in the long run it “does not create division” but rather “enables us to confront all the more resolutely the challenges of our time.”
The Holy Father touched on this same theme of the importance of truth in his homily in the Sistine Chapel during his first Mass as Pope, on May 9th, in which he linked the current crises in the world to the problems besetting the family.
“Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent,” he said. “Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.”
“These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied,” Pope Leo said. “Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”
Crisis of Modernity
In preparing to write this column this week, I reviewed many recent stories about events happening in the world in relation to the family, sexuality, bioethics, and other issues. At time, it can be enough to induce the temptation to despair.
The explosive rise in gender confusion; the continuing abortion holocaust in America even after the repeal of Roe; the destruction being caused by ubiquitous hardcore pornography; the ongoing breakdown of the family; a total lack of a sense of the sacred in society; and a sense that technology is developing far faster than our capacity to learn how to use that technology wisely: these are just some of the trends that jumped out at me.
In such a time, we desperately need the wisdom of the Catholic Church. It is heartening to see our new Holy Father touching on many of these themes with such perspicuity and outlining so clearly how truth and charity are codependent, even when the truth may cause some discomfort to those who hear it.
We can see this not just in the homilies and remarks of Pope Leo XIV, but also in other remarks coming out of the Vatican. In a recent interview Cardinal Willem Eijk noted that the Pontifical Academy for Life should focus more attention on addressing issues of gender, in light of the rapid advance of gender theory in society.
Foundation of Society on Love Sacrifice and Service
Cardinal Eijk noted that he is encouraged by the fact that in some places resistance to gender ideology is growing in strength. “According to our Catholic view of man, biological sex is an intrinsic part of the dimension of the human being,” he said. “Transmitting the truth with regard to biological sex and relationship between gender and biological sex is an element of creation and it’s something that you’d respect.”
“[W]hen we proclaim this truth in an unambiguous way, in a clear way, I think that people will not be confused anymore but can start to rethink about the basic truths of life and especially basic truths concerning Christ and Christian morality,” he added.
Ultimately, however, the poison of gender ideology could not flourish in a society in which families were strong and intact. It is within the home that boys and girls first learn about the gift of their God-given sex and see (or do not see) modelled for them how men and women of virtue can embrace their identity with gratitude. While even the strongest family ties are no guarantee that a child will not fall prey to the delusions and temptations of the world, the evidence that strong familial relationships are one of the strongest protective influences is indisputable.
The Catholic Church views the family as a fundamental unit of society and faith. Family roles and responsibilities are shaped by teachings on love, sacrifice, and service. And parents hold a primary duty to raise children in the Catholic faith.
This duty goes beyond academic learning to include moral and spiritual formation. Parents are to teach their children about God, prayer, and the sacraments. Parents, as mentioned by Pope Leo, must model virtues like charity, patience, and honesty in daily life – helping their children to follow their example. Ultimately, parents shape the next generation of the Church. This is why the devil assaults the family so strongly. He knows its power.
How good to see Pope Leo XIV preaching strongly against the growing assaults on the family and calling parents to strive for the greatness to which they are called.
Let us continue to pray for our Holy Father, for the Church, and for families.