Realities, Pope Francis says, “are greater than ideas”. And it is the need to connect the Church to the everyday challenges of Catholic families that drove his decision to convene two synods of bishops to focus on this topic. This led to the post-synodal exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, in which Francis writes shrewdly about the griefs, joys and hopes of family life and confirmed that the door to divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion in some circumstances has always been open.  

On Tuesday, the Pope boldly pushed forward his attempt to consolidate Amoris Laetitia’s blueprint by founding a new Pontifical Institute for the study of marriage and the family, replacing the one set up by Pope St John Paul II in 1981.