Drawing on Pope Paul VI’s 'Humanae Vitae,' Pope Leo defined marriage as 'the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful.'
Pope Leo XIV began the month of June by praising marriage and the family.
The American Pontiff gave his family-friendly homily to crowds filling St. Peter’s Square in Rome on Sunday, June 1, 2025, for a Mass celebrating a Jubilee event especially for “Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly.”
The event began on Friday, May 30, and lasted into Sunday.
“[T]oday’s world needs the marriage covenant,” said Pope Leo XIV after asserting that “families are the cradle of the future of humanity.” [Full homily below]
Drawing on Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, Leo also defined marriage as “the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful and fruitful. This love makes you one flesh and enables you, in the image of God, to bestow the gift of life.”
Leo explained that the Church’s recent emphasis on saints who were married couples tells us that the world needs marriage to grasp and receive God’s love and overcome anti-social forces:
In recent decades, we have received a sign that fills us with joy but also makes us think. It is the fact that several spouses have been beatified and canonized, not separately, but as married couples. I think of Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus; and of Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, who raised a family in Rome in the last century. And let us not forget the Ulma family from Poland: parents and children, united in love and martyrdom. I said that this is a sign that makes us think. By pointing to them as exemplary witnesses of married life, the Church tells us that today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love and to defeat, thanks to its unifying and reconciling power, the forces that break down relationships and societies.
He continued by emphasizing that marriage is more than an “ideal” and providing the above definition of the sacred covenant between a man and a woman.
The Pope asked parents to be examples of integrity to their children, for children to be grateful to their parents, and grandparents to “watch over” their loved ones with the virtues that “come with age”:
I encourage you, then, to be examples of integrity to your children, acting as you want them to act, educating them in freedom through obedience, always seeing the good in them and finding ways to nurture it. And you, dear children, show gratitude to your parents. To say “thank you” each day for the gift of life and for all that comes with it is the first way to honor your father and your mother (cf. Ex 20:12). Finally, dear grandparents and elderly people, I recommend that you watch over your loved ones with wisdom and compassion, and with the humility and patience that come with age.
Leo acknowledged also that the family is the means through which faith is passed on through the generations:
In the family, faith is handed on together with life, generation after generation. It is shared like food at the family table and like the love in our hearts. In this way, families become privileged places in which to encounter Jesus, who loves us and desires our good, always.
The Pontiff also reminded the congregation that they have the hope of being one with their entire families one day in heaven:
The prayer of the Son of God, which gives us hope on our journey, also reminds us that one day we will all be uno unum (cf. Saint Augustine, Sermo super Ps. 127): one in the one Saviour, embraced by the eternal love of God. Not only us, but also our fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters and children who have already gone before us into the light of his eternal Pasch, and whose presence we feel here, together with us, in this moment of celebration
Leo gave this homily on the first day of the month that sexual-political activists and their allies have set aside to celebrate sexual “diversity,” that is, homosexuality and paraphilias, in many countries of the world. In the United States, the first “Pride” march was held in 1970. Subsequently, homosexual activists established a single “Pride Day” in June. However, in 1999, then-President Bill Clinton declared June as “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.” June, however, is set aside by Catholics to give special honor to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
