Pope at Audience: We must urgently protect families and marriage

At his first Wednesday General Audience after having undergone surgery, Pope Leo XIV thanks everyone for their prayers and reflects on the role of … “The first thing I would like to say to you is: thank you! Thank you for the support of your prayers. Thanks be to God for His generosity. Let us all renew our trust in the goodness and mercy of God,” Pope Leo XIV said on October 20 in St. Peter's Square, during his first Wednesday General Audience after having undergone surgery. Pope Leo XIV was discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Saturday, October 17, after five days in hospital following a lung operation on Tuesday, October 13.

Pope Leo continued the catechesis cycle on the Documents of the Second Vatican Council and reflected on the 1965 Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (meaning “joy and hope”) on the Church in the modern world. This week he focused on marriages and family, underlining the need to protect and preserve them as they are crucial to society. The teaching of Gaudium et Spes on marriage and the family highlights “the social function of the family, defined as ‘a school of deeper humanity’ and ‘the foundation of society,’” and it calls “upon all those with social responsibilities, especially in the political and cultural