On October 21-24, the international community of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute met in Rome for a Jubilee pilgrimage and a conference on “Challenges and Opportunities in Marriage and Family.”
In culmination of the week, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV received the pilgrims at an audience in the Clementine Hall.
Below is the text of his remarks.
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ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV
TO THE FACULTY AND STUDENTS OF THE
Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute
for Marriage and Family Sciences
Clementine Hall
Friday, October 24, 2025
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Peace be with you!
Buongiorno, buenos días, good morning!
Dear brothers and sisters,
It is with joy that I welcome you, the international academic community of the John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. I greet the Grand Chancellor, Cardinal Baldassarre Reina, the President, Monsignor Philippe Bordeyne, the Vice-Presidents of the extra-urban sessions, the professors, the benefactors, all of you, dear students, together with the alumni who have come from various countries for the Jubilee. Welcome to all!
In different social, economic, and cultural contexts, the challenges that confront us are different. However, everywhere and always, we are called to support, defend, and promote the family, above all through a lifestyle consistent with the Gospel. Its fragility and value, considered in the light of faith and sound reason, engage your studies, which you cultivate for the good of engaged couples who become spouses, spouses who become parents, and their children, who are for all the promise of a humanity renewed by love. The vocation of your Institute, born of the prophetic vision of St. John Paul II in the wake of the 1980 Synod on the family, thus appears even clearer: to constitute a single academic body distributed across the different continents, in order to respond to the needs of formation by being as close as possible to spouses and families. In this way, pastoral dynamics appropriate to local realities and inspired by the living tradition of the Church and its social doctrine can be better developed.
By participating in the mission and journey of the whole Church, your Institute contributes to the understanding of the papal magisterium and to the constant updating of the dialogue between family life, the world of work, and social justice, addressing issues of current relevance, such as peace, care for life and health, integral human development, youth employment, economic sustainability, and equal opportunities between men and women, all factors that influence the choice to marry and have children. In this sense, your specific mission concerns the search for and common witness to the truth: in carrying out this task, theology is called to engage with the various disciplines that study marriage and the family, without being content to simply state the truth about them, but living it in the grace of the Holy Spirit and following the example of Christ, who revealed the Father to us through his actions and words.
The proclamation of the Gospel, which transforms life and society, commits us to promoting organic and concerted actions in support of the family. The quality of a country’s social and political life, in fact, is measured in particular by how it allows families to live well, to have time for themselves, cultivating the bonds that hold them together. In a society that often exalts productivity and speed at the expense of relationships, it becomes urgent to restore time and space to the love that is learned in the family, where the first experiences of trust, gift, and forgiveness are woven together, forming the fabric of social life.
I remember with emotion the words of my predecessor, Pope Francis, when he tenderly addressed women expecting a child, asking them to cherish the joy of bringing new life into the world (cf. Amoris laetitia, 171). His words contain a simple and profound truth: human life is a gift and must always be welcomed with respect, care, and gratitude. Therefore, faced with the reality of so many mothers who experience pregnancy in conditions of loneliness or marginalization, I feel compelled to remind everyone that the civil community and the ecclesial community must constantly strive to restore full dignity to motherhood. To this end, concrete initiatives are needed: policies that guarantee adequate living and working conditions; educational and cultural initiatives that recognize the beauty of creating life together; a pastoral ministry that accompanies women and men with closeness and listening. Motherhood and fatherhood, thus safeguarded, are not burdens on society, but rather a hope that strengthens and renews it.
Dear professors and students, your contribution to the development of social doctrine on the family corresponds to the mission entrusted to your Institute by Pope Francis in his letter Summa familiae cura, where he wrote: “The centrality of the family in the paths of ‘pastoral conversion’ of our communities and of ‘missionary transformation of the Church’ demands that — also at the level of academic formation — in reflection on marriage and on the family the pastoral perspective and attention to the wounds of humanity must never be lacking. .” In recent years, your Institute has welcomed the guidelines of the Apostolic Constitution Veritatis gaudium, for a theology that cultivates open and dialogical thinking, a culture “of encounter between all the authentic and vital cultures, thanks to a reciprocal exchange of the gifts of each in that luminous space opened up by God’s love for all his creatures” (n. 4b). For this reason, you seek to exercise an inter- and trans-disciplinary method in the light of Revelation (cf. ibid., 4c). In this perspective, the consolidated basis of philosophical and theological studies has been enriched by interaction with other disciplines, allowing for the exploration of important areas of research.
Among these, I would like to mention, as a further commitment, that of deepening the link between the family and the social doctrine of the Church. This path could take two complementary directions: that of including the study of the family as an essential chapter in the heritage of wisdom that the Church offers on social life and, reciprocally, that of enriching this heritage with family experiences and dynamics, in order to better understand the very principles of the Church’s social teaching. This focus would allow us to develop the insight, recalled by the Second Vatican Council and repeatedly emphasized by my predecessors, of seeing the family as the first cell of society, as the original and fundamental school of humanity.
In the pastoral sphere, then, we cannot ignore the tendency in many regions of the world to disregard or even reject marriage. I would like to invite you to be attentive, in your reflection on preparation for the sacrament of Marriage, to the action of God’s grace in the heart of every man and woman. Even when young people make choices that do not correspond to the ways proposed by the Church according to the teaching of Jesus, the Lord continues to knock at the door of their hearts, preparing them to receive a new interior call. If your theological and pastoral research is rooted in prayerful dialogue with the Lord, you will find the courage to invent new words that can deeply touch the consciences of young people. In fact, our time is marked not only by tensions and ideologies that confuse hearts, but also by a growing search for spirituality, truth, and justice, especially among young people. Welcoming and caring for this desire is one of the most beautiful and urgent tasks for all of us.
Finally, I would like to encourage you to continue the synodal journey as an integral part of your formation. Especially in an international athenaeum, it is necessary to practice mutual listening in order to better discern how to grow together in the service of marriage and the family. Always draw on “ baptismal vocation, placing at the center the relationship with Christ and the welcome of brothers and sisters, starting from the poorest” (Address to the Diocese of Rome, September 19, 2025). In this way, you will do what happens in every good family, learning from the very reality you wish to serve. As the Final Document of the last Assembly of the Synod of Bishops states, “families are a privileged place for learning and experiencing the essential practices of a synodal Church. Despite the fractures and sufferings that families experience, they remain places where one learns to exchange the gift of love, trust, forgiveness, reconciliation, and understanding” (no. 35). There is indeed much to learn regarding the transmission of faith, the daily practice of listening and prayer, education in love and peace, fraternity with migrants and strangers, and care for the planet. In all these dimensions, family life precedes our studies and instructs us, especially through examples of dedication and holiness.
Dear students, dear professors, begin the new academic year with hope, confident that the Lord Jesus always sustains us with the grace of his Spirit of truth and life. I cordially impart my apostolic blessing to all of you. Thank you.
