Courtney McGrailFamilies should evangelise through activity in the wider Church community and within their own homes, Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said.
Speaking in St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral on All Saints’ Day, Dr Martin recalled how at the Synod on the Family Pope Francis stressed how the Church’s first duty is not to hand down condemnations, “but to proclaim God’s mercy, to call to conversion, and to lead all men and women to salvation in the Lord”.
“There is no doubt that in many ways in the past the Church’s message on marriage and sexuality was often taught in negative terms, in terms of sinfulness,” the archbishop said, lamenting how rarely Catholics hear sermons stressing how “the real daily love of spouses is the foundation of their holiness”.
“Very rarely are we reminded that even in our failures to love we can come to a better understanding of what being poor in spirit and pure in heart really mean,” he said.