Marriage & Family Life

While several Western European bishops praised the Dec. 18 declaration of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on blessing same-sex couples as “a major breakthrough in pastoral care,” reactions elsewhere have been mixed, with African bishops offering explainers for “confused” faithful or banning same-sex blessings.

The American public’s views of the family are “complicated” and becoming “more pessimistic than optimistic about the institution of marriage and the family,” according to a new report from Pew Research Center.

Leaders are still unpacking what a “marriage catechumenate” means for the church in the U.S.

This “marriage catechumenate” model is an effort to return to the early church’s approach to forming adults to be received into the church.

Natural family planning, or NFP, provides “a skill set” to help Catholic and Christian couples “live out their beliefs that Christ is involved” in marriage and family life, a national expert told OSV News.

The forthcoming 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops — otherwise known as the Synod on Synodality, which Pope Francis convenes in Rome this October — will examine ways to accompany divorced and remarried Catholics.