Marriage according to Christian Revelation is not a ceremony or a social event, nor a formality. It is not even an abstract ideal: it is a reality with its own precise consistency, not a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will.

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This beautiful vision may seem utopian, inasmuch as it does not seem to take human frailty, the inconstancy of love, into account. Indissolubility is often conceived of as an ideal, and the mindset according to which marriage lasts as long as there is love tends to prevail.  But what kind of love is it? Here too there is often unawareness of true conjugal love, reduced to the sentimental level or to mere selfish satisfactions.

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Pope Francis

Address to the Officials of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota

for the Inauguration of the Judicial Year

January 27, 2023