No doubt Pope Francis anticipated that within hours of issuing Amoris Laetitia, battle lines would be forming—once again. Nonetheless, this “apostolic exhortation” is a valiant and powerful exercise in the Petrine ministry of upholding church unity. Francis achieves this in the deft summation and synthesis of the two synods on the family and in the counterbalancing of two chapters. He describes one as setting forth “some essential aspects of the church’s teaching on marriage and the family” and the other as “the pastoral discernment of those situations that fall short of what the Lord demands of us.”

This is a balancing act conservative critics have been quick to reject. The pope, they complain, has tried to embrace the key concerns of both of the major contending parties at the synods—and the result is an inadequate, inconsistent, or incoherent document that weakens church unity. What these critics miss is that Francis is asking us to enlarge our very understanding of that unity. “Not all discussions of doctrinal, moral, or pastoral issues need to be settled by interventions of the magisterium,” he writes in the document’s third paragraph. “Unity of teaching and practice is certainly necessary in the church, but this does not preclude various ways of interpreting some aspects of that teaching or drawing certain consequences from it. This will always be the case as the Spirit guides us towards the entire truth (cf. Jn 16:13), until he leads us fully into the mystery of Christ and enables us to see all things as he does.”

Source: Commonweal Magazine