FAMILY AND LIFE: PASTORAL TEACHINGS 1999-2013

In preparation for the Meeting of the Synod of Bishops on the family that took place in October 2014 and the upcoming Eighth World Meeting of Families in September 2015, the Pontifical Council for the Family has gather and translated into English thirteen documents dealing with matrimony, family, and life that Pope Francis, as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, used as teaching documents when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires. The texts included in this edition-on matrimony, family, and life-are always dealt with in the context of everyday realities, never in the abstract. They are themes that we hear again and again in the daily preaching of Pope Francis: the family as a concrete and human reality, the place to learn the art of living and loving. And matrimony is the foundation of family, a step in the process of "humanization" of the individual and the world. It is like a "first sacrament" of humankind where the individual discovers him or herself in relation to others and to the love that is able to receive love and return it. The lectures, reports, homilies, and other documents collected in this volume differ in style of delivery according to the occasion on which he spoke and his listeners. Therefore, at the beginning of each document, one discovers the context for the document's history and shows how it fits into the overall message of the book. It is worthwhile for the reader to see how the thoughts of Cardinal Bergoglio presage those of Pope Francis as he works to show the world the beauty of the family as the basic cell of society and as a Trinitarian mystery of our loving God.