“The Christian proclamation on the family is good news indeed” (Amoris Laetitia, 1).

On March 19, 2021, the Church will be celebrating the fifth anniversary of the publication of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia on the beauty and joy of love in the family.  On this same day, Pope Francis will launch the year “Amoris Laetitia Family,” which will conclude on June 26, 2022, during the X Meeting of Families in Rome with the Holy Father.

Pope Francis announced the year of “Amoris Laetitia Family during his Angelus Message on the Feast of the Holy Family on December 27, 2020. He ended by invoking the Blessed Mother, “May the Virgin Mary grant that families throughout the world be increasingly fascinated by the evangelical ideal of the Holy Family, so as to become a leaven of [a] new humanity and of a genuine and universal solidarity.”

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, which has been entrusted by the Holy Father for the coordination of this initiative, stated, “It is an invitation to each and every one of us, to bishops, to priests, to married couples, to all Catholics, to all Christians to reflect on the importance of marriage and family in our society today…I would hope that we would all make a very special effort to celebrate this year of Amoris Laetitia by organizing events in our own domestic families, in our parishes, in our dioceses, so that together we can give new life and a new impulse in this new year to the life of the family in our society.”

For more information on the year of “Amoris Laetitia Family” or to read the full text of Amoris Laetitia, please visit the Vatican website.