Washington - Pope Francis said on Thursday that "the great majority" of Catholic marriages are religiously null because people don't understand the concept of a lifetime commitment.
Francis' comments, which were reported by the Catholic News Agency, came during the question-and-answer session of a meeting of the Diocese of Rome.
According to CNA, a layperson asked about the "crisis of marriage" and how Catholics can help young people overcome their "resistance, delusions and fears" about marriage.
Francis, who in his three-plus years as pope has regularly made news with his off-the-cuff remarks, cited a case he'd heard of a young man who wanted to become a priest - but just for 10 years. The culture is too provisional, Francis said.
"It's provisional, and because of this the great majority of our c marriages are null. Because they say 'yes, for the rest of my life!' but they don't know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don't know," he reportedly said.
Francis has spoken regularly and in accessible language about the challenge of relationships, and of marriage. He devoted two years to high-level meetings on the challenges to the modern family, and in April released a document that is the church's warmest welcome in modern times to divorced and remarried couples, saying they shouldn't be judged, discriminated against or excluded from church life.
Catholics had been anxiously awaiting the document, as their faith excludes from the core rite of Communion people who have divorced and remarried outside the church. Francis in that document encouraged their priests to be merciful in considering whether such Catholics can receive Communion.
Marriage, in Catholic teaching, is a sacrament, an "original gift from God to humanity," says the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website. "It is a permanent, faithful, fruitful partnership between one man and one woman. The USCCB says divorce "claims" to break marriage, but only a church tribunal can say that a marriage isn't valid because a real bond never existed. One of the reasons church courts may give for annulling a marriage is to say that the parties were unprepared.
In his comments, Francis noted that when he was archbishop in Buenos Aires, he had prohibited marriages in the case of "shotgun weddings" where the prospective bride was pregnant, CNA reported. He did this on the grounds there was a question of the spouses' free consent to marry.
"Maybe they love each other, and I've seen there are beautiful cases where, after two or three years they got married," he said. "And I saw them entering the church, father, mother and child in hand. But they knew well (what) they did."
Francis attributed the marriage crisis to people who "don't know what the sacrament is" and don't know "the beauty of the sacrament."
"They don't know that it's indissoluble, they don't know that it's for your entire life. It's hard," the pope said.
Washington Post
* Michelle Boorstein is the Post’s religion reporter.