Guide to love, sex, marriage by Pope

Pope Francis is staking out ground that will define his tenure.

Officially referred to as an “apostolic exhortation”, the 200-page text is effectively a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics that lays down revised foundations for Church teaching and pastoral practice on a host of issues related to family life.

The hopes of Catholic radicals for significant changes to official doctrine were quashed during the 2014 and 2015 synods of bishops, the conclusions of which will inform without dictating the content of Francis’s missive.

But the document will also inevitably reflect the current pontiff’s instinctive tendency to try to make the Church seem a more merciful, less judgemental body in relation to those faithful who find themselves in “irregular” situations.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.