On his way back from Lesbos, Greece, last Saturday, Pope Francis expressed a certain irritation with the media's obsession with Communion for divorced Catholics who have civilly re-married while avoiding much greater issues about marriage and the family.
POPE FRANCIS [Rome Reports]
When I convened the first synod, the great concern of the media was: Can the divorced and civilly remarried receive communion? And since I'm no saint, I was a bit irritated and it made me a little sad, but the media says this, why is it that they don’t see that the family, around the world, is in crisis? That despite the family being the foundation of society, the youth today don’t want to get married. That the birth rates in Europe make you want to cry. Do they not realize that the lack of work and job opportunities force parents to work and children grow up alone, so they do not learn to grow in dialogue with their parents? These are bigger problems.
It was the first time the Pope spoke directly about the media-generated debate.
Despite this, in his Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, he only devoted one of its nine chapters to this problem.
Prayer before the meal, Adriaen Jansz van Ostrade, 1653
British Museum, London [Web Gallery of Art]
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