Houston, Texas, Nov 8, 2017 / 16:00 pm
Priests must uphold the lifelong covenant of marriage as "a message of liberation, even when it's difficult," Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia told a gathering of Filipino-American clergy.
Jesus' words about the indissolubility of marriage "can't be softened, or reinterpreted, or contextualized." he said at the National Assembly of Filipino Priests USA, in Houston on Nov. 8. Elsewhere in his remarks, he warned: "Christian marriage is never simply an 'ideal.' Describing it as an 'ideal' tends to open the door to excusing and then normalizing failure."
"For Christians, sexual intimacy outside a valid marriage can never be morally legitimate. And it's the Church that determines what a valid sacramental marriage is," he said.
The archbishop's topic was Pope Francis' post-synodal apostolic exhortation "Amoris Laetitia."