Pope Francis’ family letter confronts real life with love, Utah Catholics say

The first thing to note about Pope Francis' just-released pastoral letter, "The Joy of Love," is its style.

"Church documents can be very stodgy," Monsignor M. Francis Mannion, of Salt Lake City's Catholic Diocese, said Friday. "This letter has a lightness to it and a rhetorical force that is quite powerful."

Apart from that, the pontiff's lengthy treatise puts a great emphasis on "proclaiming the church's teaching while recognizing the complexities of people's lives," said Mannion, emeritus pastor at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Holladay. "The church has to learn to live with imperfections on the part of its members."

The 256-page document — which covers various family dynamics, including cohabitation, divorce and gay marriage — is a "beautiful, marvelous pastoral letter," said Monsignor Terrence Fitzgerald, the diocese's retired vicar general. "It reflects the joys and pains of real life that the pope observed and experienced in Argentina."

The letter is the culmination of two years of discussion in the global faith. It follows a survey of its estimated 1.2 billion members and two lively — at times fractious — synods of the church's bishops.

"As we take time to fully reflect on the Holy Father's words, we note the renewed call to encounter the gospel as we engage in our human relationships," the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City said in a statement. "His invitation for laypeople to enter more deeply into the joys and challenges of marriage and family life and the call for pastors to accompany and remain close to those who suffer, speaks to our Lord's endless mercy and the power of tenderness."

The diocese represents Utah's 300,000-plus Catholics.

A recurring theme in the document, said diocesan spokeswoman Susan Dennin, was "pastoral realism," guiding pastors to recognize the true complexities of parishioners, rather than always expecting "idealism."

Francis' "guidance goes a long way toward meeting people where they are; both on their faith journey and through the challenges they may experience," she said. "In addition, his reference to the church as a field hospital is illustrative of the mercy and love that the church has for all."

In his lengthy presentation, the pope "addresses some of the problematic areas affecting the institution of the family and how the church is trying to help them," explained the Rev. Langes J. Silva, judicial vicar and vice chancellor for the diocese. "In a particular way, our Holy Father Francis ... is calling us all, clerics and laypeople, for a deeper discernment, mercy and integration in dealing [with] and resolving all these issues that are oppressing the families all over the world."

For Mannion, what the pope didn't say about gays was significant.

In the past, the church's teachings about gay people "has often had a very negative ring to it," the priest said. "This is totally different. ... There's a shift in tone and style that is impressive."

Though the document changed no doctrine or Catholic law on same-sex marriage, for example, Mannion believes it should give gays hope.

Besides, the section on gays is brief.

"It was clear to me that at the synods," Mannion said, "there was no consensus about gay lives."

Francis took the easy way out," he said, "by not dealing with the matter at all."

pstack@sltrib.com

Twitter: @religiongal