INVOKING THE HIDDEN RESILIENCE OF VULNERABLE LOVE

The Fundamental Aspects for an Ethics of Growth in the Light of Pope Francis’ “Logic of Pastoral Mercy and Discernment” in Amoris Laetitia

Abstract

Pope Francis has pointed out a definitive direction in his exhortation The Joy of Love (2016) after the double synod on marriage and the family in 2014 and 2015. With this, he brings a long process of evolution to a tentative ‘conclusion.’ The process began with Casti Connubii (1930) and continued on — not without difficulties, crooked twists and turns — through Gaudium et Spes (1965) of Vatican II, Humanae Vitae (1968), Familiaris Consortio (1981) and the ‘theology of the body’ of John Paul II (1979-1984). Much work, however, still needs to be done (with regard, among others, to sexual difference and homosexual commitments) and this process will also never end. The exhortation contains a double challenge. Firstly, to test and deepen our Christian thinking on marriage and the family. And secondly, to reflect on the problematic that is evoked by so-called “irregular” forms of relationships, for instance pre- and non-marital cohabitation, merely civil marriage, remarriage after divorce, or a new relationship without legal recognition (AL, 53, 78, 293). Both challenges are taken to heart in this article, namely to develop an ethics of growth and discernment as a concretisation of what Pope Francis calls the “logic of pastoral mercy” (AL, 307-312), first for marriage itself, but likewise and in particular, for the many forms of relationship and cohabitation that do not, or not yet, or no longer correspond to the bond of marriage.