“It’s worth helping young newlyweds knowing how to find time to deepen their friendship and embrace God’s grace premarital chastity prefers this path because it gives the new spouses time to be together, to get to know each other better, without immediately thinking about it procreation and to raising children“. So it is written in a document of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life entitled “Catechumenal Ways for Married Life”. A text prefaced by Pope Francis and which will be released on the eve of X World Meeting of Families which will take place in Rome from 22 to 26 June 2022. “Young people always arouse great interest – the Vatican document says – listening directly to spouses telling their story as a couple and giving reasons for their ‘yes’, or the testimonies of engaged couples, including those who are have not yet decided to marry, who wish to live out the engagement as significant Christians Time of discernment and verificationincluding those who made the choice chastity before marriage and who communicate to the very young the reasons for their choice and the spiritual fruits that result”.
there Holy See Affirms that “the Church must never fail in proposing the precious virtue of chastity, even though this is the case now in direct contrast to the usual mentality. Chastity must be presented as real ‘Allies of Love’, not as a negation of it. Indeed, learning to respect the individuality and dignity of others without subordinating them to one’s own desires is the privileged path. Chastity teaches married couples the times and ways of true, tender and generous love, and prepares for the authentic gift of self that is then to be lived throughout life in marriage. It is therefore important to show that the virtue of chastity does not only have a negative dimension that invites everyone, depending on their state of life, to: a disturbed use of sexualitybut it also has a very important positive dimension of freedom from the possession of others, from a physical, moral and spiritual point of view, fundamental in the case of the vocation to marriage, to orient and nourish conjugal love and to protect it from any manipulation. Ultimately, chastity teaches being faithful to the truth of one’s love in every state of life. This means for engaged couples to live chastity in continence and, once married, to live conjugal intimacy with moral integrity.
The document also states that “chastity lived in continence makes relationship possible mature gradually and in depth. Indeed, when, as often happens, the sexual-genital dimension becomes the most important, if not the only, element holding a couple together, all other aspects are inevitably sidelined or obscured and the relationship stalls. Chastity lived in continence, on the other hand, facilitates the process of getting to know each other between engaged couples because, by preventing the relationship from becoming fixated on the physical exploitation of the other, it allows for a deeper dialogue, a freer manifestation of the heart and the emergence of all aspects of one’s personality, human and spiritual, intellectual and emotional, to allow true growth in the relationship, in personal communion, in the discovery of the richness and limits of the other: and this is the real purpose of the time of engagement”.
For the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, “It is never meaningless to speak of the virtue of chastity, even when we are speaking to couples living together. This virtue teaches every baptized person in every situation how to deal with their sexuality correctly and is therefore also of great benefit in married life. In fact, as a spouse, the importance of those values and attentions that the virtue of chastity teaches becomes even clearer: respect for the other, concern never to submit to one’s desires, patience and gentleness with one’s spouse in physical and emotional difficulties, the necessary strength and self-control in times of absence or illness of one of the spouses, etc. . In this context too, the experience of Christian spouses will be important in explaining the importance of this virtue within marriage and the family”.
That Vatican also points out that “i educational courses Affectivity and sexuality, in the context of positive and level-headed sex education offered to children as they grow older, should not be restricted tout court only to the horizon of love, since in the prevailing cultural interpretation this is mainly understood as romantic love, but they are of a clear marital vision of love mutual devotion of the spouseshow to know how to love and to be loved, how to exchange affection and unconditional acceptance, how to know how to rejoice and how to suffer for the other”. And again: “Despite all the support, that the church can offer couples in crisisHowever, there are situations when a breakup is inevitable. Sometimes it can even become morally necessary, especially when it comes to relieving the most vulnerable spouse or young children from the deepest wounds caused by bullying and violence, humiliation and exploitation, alienation and indifference. However, it must be considered as a last resort, after every other reasonable attempt has proved futile”.
In his foreword to the document Bergoglio explains the reasons that led to the creation of this itinerary: “This clearly shows the serious concern that couples who are too superficially prepared run the real risk of celebrating a zero marriage or with such weak bases that they “collapse” in a short time and do not know how to withstand even the first inevitable crises. These failures bring great suffering and leave deep wounds in people. They remain disillusioned, embittered and, in the most painful cases, even no longer believe in the vocation to love that God himself has inscribed in the human heart. There is therefore a duty, first of all, to accompany with a sense of responsibility those who express their intention to be united in marriage, so that they are saved from the traumas of separation and never lose faith in love.
“But – adds the Pope – there is also one sense of justice that should encourage us. The church is a mother, and a mother makes no preferences among her children. He doesn’t treat them unequally, he gives everyone equal care, equal attention, equal time. Taking your time is a sign of love: Not devoting time to a person is a sign that we don’t love them. This often comes to mind when I think of how the Church spends a lot of time, a few years, preparing candidates for priesthood or religious life, but little time, just a few weeks, preparing for marriage. Spouses, like priests and consecrated persons, are children of the Mother Church and such great inequality is not right. Married couples make up the vast majority of the faithful and are often pillars in parishes, volunteer groups, associations and movements. They are true guardians of life, not only because they father children, educate them and accompany them in their growth, but also because they take care of the elderly in the family, devote themselves to the service of people with disabilities and often to many situations of the poverty with which they come into contact”. “Therefore, Francis concludes, in order to give substance to this urgent need, I have recommended that a genuine catechumenate be held for future spouses, encompassing all the stages of the sacramental journey: the period of preparation for marriage, its celebration and the years immediately following .” .