How to teach future priests to “lead from darkness to light, from the biological to the heavenly, from the world to God” on the topic of marriage. This was the topic of discussion at the Casina Pio IV in the Vatican Gardens during a study day promoted yesterday, April 28, by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life on “The Sacrament of Marriage, Faith, and the Munus Docendi .” Following a speech by Cardinal Prefect Kevin Farrell, the Rector of the Pontifical Salesian University, Father Andrea Bozzolo, emphasized the “need for pastoral guidance” based on approaches that combine biblical wisdom, theological insight, an understanding of current cultural phenomena, and listening to concrete family experiences, with “special attention to the emotional and sexual education of adolescents and young people.” The words of Father Fabio Rosini, a biblical scholar and professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, echoed: “If we continue to train priests to be producers of a penultimate life, it won’t be of much use to sacramentally married couples, and it won’t matter what they have to say. We run the risk of continuing to sell the world to the world,” he warned. Therefore, “after centuries of parenthetical language, after the conciliar revival of kerygmatic language, given the need to proceed with the pedagogy that leads to baptism, the time has come to return to didactic-instructive language,” he concluded.

by Kevin Farrell

In recent decades, profound cultural transformations have redefined the processes of family formation. The couple bond is increasingly seen as an individual experiment, less and less as a definitive bond. Marriage is no longer considered necessary for the formation of a family alliance, and cohabitation becomes the choice, now considered almost obligatory by many, to test the couple’s stability with a view—though not always—to a stronger future bond.

These processes urgently challenge the ecclesial conscience today , especially in the context of youth and family ministry. Listening to the particular Churches and bishops on their “ad limina” visits—who share enormous difficulties in reaching the families of baptized faithful who no longer come to the Church—a question arises: how can we make the munus docendi more fruitful, so that new generations of priests can raise children and young people to the faith, cultivate in them the Christian vocation of marriage, and accompany families in the value-based challenges of our time?

To answer this question, the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life has organized a study seminar, involving various Dicasteries of the Roman Curia, representatives of the seminary world, rectors, teachers and all those who, in various capacities, share the responsibility of training future pastors and supporting the Church in its educational mission, to share a reflection on the relationship between the sacrament of marriage, faith and munus docendi .

The hope is that the launch of this reflection will, over time, foster a priestly formation that is more closely aligned with pastoral practice and capable of generating new Christian families in the faith. These families are not the automatic product of tradition, but the fruit of a faith welcomed, celebrated, and lived.

“In the family, faith is transmitted together with life, from generation to generation,” Leo XIV reminded us ( Homily , 01.06.2025). However, “since families struggle to transmit the faith and could be tempted to shirk this task, we must try to stand alongside them without replacing them,” the Holy Father said again ( Speech , 09.19.2025). 

Without a doubt, the transmission of faith within families is weaker than in the past. According to the 2021 Annual Statistical Report on the Church, between 1991 and 2021, baptisms administered worldwide to children under 7 decreased by 31.1%, and Catholic marriages by 48%. Faced with these numbers, we must not be discouraged, but rather acknowledge them and use them as an opportunity for ecclesial rebirth. Moreover, the tenth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia and the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis prompt an assessment of the progress made. Even more so, we are invited to reflect on the announcement of the Holy Father (dated March 19, 2026), who has decided to convene the presidents of the Episcopal Conferences from around the world in Rome in October 2026, for the purpose of discerning those passages of Amoris Laetitia that await fuller reception in the life and practice of the Church, in order to be able to accompany today’s family realities with awareness and competence.

One of the most relevant pastoral issues, in this regard, concerns the relationship between faith and marriage, not in a doctrinal sense, but in terms of how we train priests to help them understand this relationship and its practical implications for the lives of young people and families.

Indeed, many seminaries and pontifical universities offer solid theological training on the sacrament of marriage; but it risks remaining theoretical, lacking adequate engagement with the real-life experience of family life and the ongoing cultural transformations. This makes it difficult for many pastors to effectively engage with the world of young people and families as it presents itself today: families marked by processes of de-Christianization, young people disinterested in marriage, or coming from fragile and discontinuous family situations. Often, the request to celebrate marriage in Church does not reflect a mature faith, nor an awareness of the ecclesial and sacramental significance of what is being requested. Furthermore, we often find ourselves faced with situations in which even a trace of predisposition to faith is lacking, which partly explains the high number of couples in crisis who choose to separate, unable to find the grace to save their marriage in the sacrament.

From this perspective, the relationship between faith and marriage can no longer be considered, pastorally, an acquired presupposition; nor can it be considered merely a cultural issue, emerging from observing the reality of the family. It requires a broad ecclesial reflection, including how ordained ministers are trained to accompany young people toward a vocation that must mature and requires time, discernment, and patience.

From this observation, the importance of the munus docendi emerges . At the pastoral level, it cannot be reduced to the simple transmission to the laity, in didactic and theoretical form, of what the Church teaches and requires regarding marriage. Rather, it requires the ability to accompany those intending to marry on a path of experiential maturation, preparing them to welcome the grace of Christ, to enable them to live a Christian life. Amoris laetitia also calls for this in no. 203, where it states that “seminarians should have access to a broader interdisciplinary formation on engagement and marriage, and not just on doctrine.”

Furthermore, the issues emerging from the recent synodal process of the universal Church regarding marriage and the family need to be incorporated into the formation programs of seminarians and the ongoing formation of priests. It is in light of these challenges that our Seminary took shape: an opportunity to discern the need for more adequate initial and ongoing formation of the clergy regarding the vocation to marriage, which must be proclaimed, protected, and accompanied. We need teachers of the faith and authentic spiritual fathers to foster Christian families.

*Cardinal Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life