“With a heart full of gratitude and hope, I say, husband, marriage is not an ideal, but the model of true love between man and woman: total, faithful and fruitful love,” said Leo XIV in the homily
Pope Leo XIV received thousands of families this Sunday in St. Peter’s Square, defended marriage as the union between men and women, “not as an ideal,” and criticized those who invoke “freedom to take life.”
“With a heart full of gratitude and hope, I say, husband, marriage is not an ideal, but the model of true love between man and woman: total, faithful and fruitful love,” he said in the homily, citing the encyclical ‘humane vitae’, 1968.
The new Pope presided over his first major jubilee event since his election on May 8, with a mass dedicated to families, who filled the Vatican Square, despite the intense heat.
In the homily, the Pontiff defended the “holy marriages” between men and women to overcome “the forces that destroy relations and societies.”
The Pope stressed that “we all live thanks to a relationship, that is, a free and liberating bond of humanity and mutual care.”
“Brothers, if we love ourselves, about the foundation of Christ (…), we will be a sign of peace for all, in society and in the world. We should not forget: it is from the hearts of families that the future of peoples is born,” he said.
Leo XIV lamented that “sometimes this humanity is betrayed” when life is not protected.
“It is true that sometimes this humanity is betrayed. For example, when freedom is invoked not to give life, but to take it away; not to protect it, but to hurt. However, even in the face of evil that divides and kills, Jesus continues to pray to the Father for us,” he argued.
To defend the family, he cited some couples and families who have climbed together to the altars in recent decades, such as the parents of Santa Teresa of the Baby Jesus, Louis and Celia Martin, beatified in 2008, or the Polish Ulma family, killed by protecting Jews in World War II.
“By proposing holy couples as exemplary witnesses, the church tells us that today’s world needs the marital covenant to know and accept the love of God and to overcome, with its power to unite and reconcile, the forces that destroy relationships and societies,” he said.
The Mass brought together thousands of families from 131 countries around the world to participate in this event that is dedicated to them in the Holy Year and filled St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, with bands and posters in which slogans could be read as “Papa Leo, protects the family.”
Before the Eucharist, the Pontiff toured the square in his Paparmobile, blessing dozens of children that his helpers approached his unconvertible vehicle and even shouted “Pope Lion, protects the family.”
