Fidelity, Truth and Love

Richard A. Sokerka

When Pope Francis formally opened the Ordinary Synod of the Bishops on the Family earlier this month, he told the bishops assembled that the union between a man and woman is the foundation of God’s plan for the family.

“This is God’s dream for his beloved creation: to see it fulfilled in the loving union between a man and a woman, rejoicing in their shared journey, fruitful in their mutual gift of self,” the Pope said during his opening Mass for the Synod of Bishops. He explained that this plan is the same one presented in the day’s Gospel, when Jesus says, “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.’”

God’s words, the Pope said, “show that God made men and women for happiness, to share their journey with someone who complements them…to love and to be loved, and to see their love bear fruit in children.”

The Pope said the Church is called to carry out her mission regarding family life in fidelity, truth and love. In fidelity to her master, the Church is called to defend faithful love and encourage families whose married life reveals God’s own love, he said.

The Church is also called to defend “the sacredness of life, of every life; in defending the unity and indissolubility of the conjugal bond,” he said.

While some in secular society take the Pope’s remarks out of context to fit their own agenda in trying to make their case to create change in the Church, the Pope adamantly stated that the Church’s mission must be carried out in truth, which doesn’t change with passing fads or popular opinions or societal trends.