Teaching discernment for family growth

In the Amoris Laetitia Family year - co-ordinated by the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life - the Gregorian Pontifical University’s faculty members of the Diploma in Practical Theology majoring in Family Ministry, held a two-day meeting to reflect on the experience of local churches with regard to the practice of discernment (April 23-24 2021).

When Pope Francis highlighted discernment as the focus of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia, some people were somewhat bewildered, as if this term were unknown to them, while others went so far as to regard it as conducive to relativistic subjectivism. But discernment pertains to the great tradition of the Church, and it belongs to the noble moral tradition of Western Europe (Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas). Moreover, in contemporary culture, decision-making has become a challenge: couples struggle to plan their future, as do parents with regard to their children.

Thus, what does it mean to “exercise discernment” in the family and in family life in its various stages, amidst periods of growth and of crisis? The aim of the Diploma in Family Ministry is to best prepare our students for this practice by offering them the tools for an interdisciplinary approach drawing on the scholarly expertise of our faculty members, ranging from anthropology to sociology, from psychology to family therapy, from moral theology to bioethics and spirituality.

 

Caught between indecision and authoritativeness 

We are presently witnessing a crisis in leadership roles whereby responsibilities are hardly shouldered, decisions are postponed indefinitely, and problems drag on, exacerbating critical situations. Authority has lost its relevance in child upbringing and in schools. Boundaries are not being imposed, and teenagers have no role models to turn to for psychological and emotional guidance. Authoritarianism thus resurfaces as a convenient remedy, but it ultimately encroaches on the realm of conscience and the exercise of responsibility and freedom.

The Latin noun auctoritas comes from the verb augere, which means “to make something grow”. Hence exercising authority serves to promote growth, to foster community initiatives, to appreciate the diverse charisms and opinions, setting the example in the respect of pluralism, to jointly seek the truth, which – albeit never having a uniform character – will nevertheless be binding.

In other words, the honest search for truth creates a bond in charity that enables the individual to feel connected with his/her fellow other and to connect others with him/herself, regardless of whether they share the same views. The true and authentic bond is therefore an inner bond, it’s the bond of conscience in the process of embracing the truth, in a constant quest that is never conclusive and never personal, always in dialogue with our fellow other, with the community, with the family, with reality.

 

The way of charity and the way of discernment 

Pope Francis writes that “the Church’s task is often like that of a field hospital” for those “in the midst of a storm.” (AL291). Which storm is he referring to? Those wounded by the radical change of the times, those who - in the attempt to pursue a relationship, form a family, build a future for themselves and their loved ones - have been overwhelmed by ideological struggles, by economic processes, by cultural transformations, caught up in a storm that caused them to lose their emotional bearings, unable to continue being in a relationship, or feeling unprepared to shoulder the responsibilities of family life. 

“In complex situations” (AL 37) Pope Francis offers us two paths: the way of charity and the way of discernment. These are not two parallel paths, but two inter-circulating and inseparable currents. According to St. Paul, charity is the fundamental criterion of discernment. What is the object of discernment? It is our loving response to the experience of gratuitous love and the call to love. The starting point is our spiritual experience, Christ’s call and our discipleship, according to the precious criteria that the Pope offers to us for our personal and community life of faith. 

Faith, Pope Francis says, becomes a light capable of illumining all our relationships (LF 54), the relationship of love that gives fulfilment to happiness in love, which is what everyone yearns for. Yet a relationship based on mutual self-giving, based on lasting love that we can count on not only today but also in the future, is fraught with obstacles. Only God can fulfil this promise, and for this reason there will always be room for forgiveness, for redemption, for the prospect of a new beginning. 

 

Re-connecting people with the intimacy of conscience

We should not be afraid to discover our own or other people’s fragility: it is a practice of “spiritual health” that helps us realise that we are not idols or superheroes, as dictated by an aggressively competitive society. We are men and women of flesh and blood. Sinners.

Moral teaching is necessary to transmit the core values of the Gospel, but it is neither the only way nor the most effective form of communicating the Gospel and its underlying message, which must always be conveyed as one. Moreover, there exists a “hierarchy of truths”, and they are not all given the same emphasis (EG 36). Amoris laetitia draws on a set of criteria pertaining to Church tradition, notably from St Thomas Aquinas, that illuminate the moral life of Christians. We cannot judge an individual’s inner life, his conscience, from the outside, for “there he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths.” (GS 16). Many men and women of our time have lost this intimate connection and, consequently, they struggle to hear the voice of God, they struggle to discern His voice from other voices. This is the starting point for discernment, since discernment is not possible without inner life. Pastoral ministry must therefore offer meaningful guidance in the discovery of the inner world of the faithful, understood as the foundation for building stable relationships along the journey towards fulfilment.