Pope Francis's Excuses

In anticipating the publication of the Holy Father’s reflections on the synods, I was prepared for the worst, something that might well have touched the infallibility issues. As I finished a first, not overly careful reading, I thought that the papal presentation was in fact generally quite good, even profound in many places. I was, of course, amused by the title—Amoris Laetitia—as it seemed like a title more likely to have come from Ovid or Catullus than even from a Borgia pope. Then there was the same title in the light of C.S. Lewis’ Four Loves and a similar consideration found in Benedict’s Deus Caritas Est on the different meanings of “love”—agape, phila, eros, and storge. But most of these important distinctions found their way into the present document, not just the eros (amor) one, though that was there too in a very careful manner.