What Pope Francis said about the family – a striking message
“There is no perfect family. We do not have perfect fathers and mothers; we are not perfect, we do not marry a perfect person, and we do not have perfect children.
We have complaints about one another. We have disappointed one another. That is why there is no healthy marriage or healthy family without the practice of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is vital for our emotional health and our spiritual survival. Without forgiveness the family becomes a stage for conflict and a stronghold of grievances. Without forgiveness the family becomes sick.
Forgiveness is the cleansing of the soul, the clearing of the mind and the freeing of the heart. Whoever does not forgive has neither peace of soul nor communion with God.
Hurt is a poison that intoxicates and kills. Holding on to a wound in the heart is a self-destructive act; it is the height of selfishness. Whoever does not forgive wears themselves out physically, emotionally and spiritually.
That is why the family must be a place of life, not of death; a land of healing, not of sickness and intolerance.
Forgiveness brings joy, while resentment produces pain and sickness.”
Pope Francis
Note: this text circulates widely under Pope Francis’s name, but its exact source could not be confirmed. It does, however, echo his teaching on forgiveness in the family (see, for example, Amoris Laetitia, 105-108).
