PROCREATION, SPOUSAL RELATIONSHIP, AND SEX AFTER AMORIS LAETITIA
Keywords:
Amoris Laetitia, Marriage, Pius XI, Pope Francis, Procreative Model, Responsible Parenthood, Spousal Relation ModelAbstract
A consideration of the models of marriage in the Catholic Church is mandatory for, before educators can prepare a couple for marriage, they must be clear on what model of marriage they will promote. A model is an imaginary construct postulated by analogy with a familiar reality and used to correlate a set of observations. There are two major models of marriage in the Catholic tradition, a procreation model and a spousal relation model. The procreative model dominated in the tradition from the second to the twentieth century; the spousal relation model came to the fore at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Pope Francis embraces both models in his Amoris Laetitia, though he prioritizes the spousal relation models. This essay considers the two models and the present prioritization of the spousal relation model.
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