Archbishop Martin: Pope Leo and world bishops discussed the fragility of family life

Press Release - Tuesday, 20 October 2026 

Archbishop Eamon Martin was appointed secretary to this English language group at the universal Church meeting in the Paul VI Audience Hall, Vatican City, to mark the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation on love in the family, 'Amoris Laetitia'.  The meeting was convoked by Pope Leo XIV and took place from 7 to 14 October with the heads of the Eastern Churches and the Presidents of the Bishops' Conferences in attendance (Catholic Communications Office archive).

Today is the second day of the Autumn 2026 plenary meeting of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference, taking place at Saint Patrick's College, Maynooth.  During the celebration of Mass yesterday, the President of the Conference, Archbishop Eamon Martin, delivered the following reflection to bishops on his attendance last week in Rome at the meeting, hosted by Pope Leo XIV, to mark ten years since the publication of Amoris Laetitia:

Reflection

I was honoured to represent the Irish bishops recently in Rome at the international assembly called by Pope Leo XIV to mark ten years after Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia.

The meeting was entitled 'Proclaiming the Gospel with families today.'  It was very much a pastoral assembly, and our reflections concentrated on five key themes:

1.  What are the joys and challenges in family life around the world today?

2.  At a time when the rates of marriage and birthrates are falling, how can we encourage young people to embrace a vocation to marriage?

3.  How should the Church support married couples and families, especially in the early first five years of married life?

4.  How can Church support marriage and family in crisis?

5.  And finally, in what ways can families contribute to the mission of the Church?

That, number five, of course, was a major theme at our own National Synodal Assembly in Gormanston, Co Meath, on Saturday.  It is not just that families need the Church; the Church herself needs families to sustain and proclaim her mission and message. 

Pope Leo XIV was with us for the beginning of our conference but, as you know, he had to go into hospital.  The report and conclusions of our gathering will not be published until the Holy Father has had an opportunity to read and reflect on them in due course. 

On Saturday, delegates spoke during the National Assembly about the beauty of the family, and the special significance of the sacrament of matrimony.  But in Rome much of our time concentrated on the fragility of the family nowadays in this complex changing world. 

Some have said that the family is God's masterpiece, and I was reminded of her words when I read this today's first reading from Saint Paul to the Ephesians, 'You are God’s work of art.'  Living marriage and family is in many ways an art form.  We should be careful, however, about portraying family life as idyllic.  Perhaps, unintentionally, in the Church we have characterised the domestic Church, modelled on the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, with 'out of this world' perfection.

The reality is, of course, quite different.  As the late Pope Francis put it in Amoris Laetitia, 'no family drops down from heaven perfectly formed.' 

In Rome, last week, we heard about the huge cultural shifts - even in the past ten years - which have had a major impact on family.  We mentioned Covid19; the high rate of domestic violence and aggression against women; the decline in respect for the dignity of the human person and respect for human life.  We recognised much brokenness in families, the decline in birth rate and marriage rate, and the increased ease of divorce.  Rates of cohabitation are also on the rise, and the seeming avoidance by young people of life-long commitment.  There are growing pressures on marriages and family, from addiction and mental health issues, and massive stresses on relationships brought about by the social media and the digital culture.

Catholic marriages and Catholic homes are not exempt from these pressures, nor from the reality of physical and emotional abuse, neglect, coercive control, bullying and exploitation, and shockingly, even, femicide, rape and sexual abuse.  It is interesting how much the delegates in Rome last week, and also at our own Assembly on Saturday, spoke about the importance of the Church being close to families, accompanying them in their fragiliy. 

Even over the past ten years since Amoris Laetitia was published, and the IX World Meeting of Families took place here in Ireland in 2018, the situation for families in our own country has become more challenging and more in need of the message of mercy and grace - that message which is at the heart of yesterday's reading from the letter to the Ephesians.

Families need the Church to show mercy, empathy, compassion and an understanding of their brokenness - not rejection or judgement - and this especially includes those whose relationships have broken down through separation and divorce.

The Church is called to be a voice of love and encouragement, a Mother Church, who recognises the enormous pressures on her families.  At the same time, people look to the Church to offer stable stepping stones to help the children and young people of today find solid footholds amidst the many other confusing and complicated pathways offered them by society and the surrounding screen culture. 

Many of the bishops in Rome, last week, commented that Amoris Laetitia has helped to change the paradigm by encouraging outreach in the Church to the peripheries, and especially to those who feel excluded, unworthy or forgotten.  As Cardinal Kasper famously reminded us during the Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2025, mercy is the 'primary attribute' of God for today's world.  Paul says to the Ephesians, 'But God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ.'

It occurred to me in Rome that in this world of rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence, the family, with all its beauty and fragility, is REAL.  Family is a place of genuine human connection.  It cannot be reduced to data, algorithms and predictability.  The family is made up of human persons with unique faces, voices, strengths and weaknesses; it can therefore be a vital cell of formation in care, mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation.  Family can grow to be a school of human dignity, a cradle of vocation and vocations, a beacon of evangelisation.  Family rejects the artificial idea that so-called human 'defects' are there to be to be eliminated.  Family accepts us as we are, with all our limitations and potential for change.  And that is why families ought to be homes of God’s mercy.

At the Irish Church's National Synodal Assembly in Gormanston on Saturday, we gave voice to the family in the mission of the Church; considering ways of helping families of faith to reach out to other families - both online and offline.  We need to AFFIRM those families and ecclesial movements who are already active in marriage and family support and catechesis.

The opening antiphon asks that God will protect us 'as the apple of his eye', and shelter us 'in the shadow of his wings.'  In the same way the Church in Ireland can find new ways to protect and shelter the family and always CELEBRATE the agency of the family, where we can unlock the capacity of lay faithful to act as responsible participants in the life and mission of the Church.