Card. Schönborn (Vienna), “The relationship with God helps spouses to heal wounds and find deeper meaning”

The “spiritual realism” of marriage, in which “each spouse realizes that the other is not his or her own, but has a much more important master, the one Lord,” is the central theme of Amoris Laetitia no. 320. Card. Christopher Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, recalled this during the Pastoral Congress at the Dublin World Meeting of Families in his introduction to this morning’s panel session, which he also moderated, on Celebrating Family in the Judeo-Christian Tradition. According to the cardinal, the “personal relationship” with God “not only helps to heal the wounds of life in common but also allows spouses to find in God’s love the deepest source of meaning in their lives.” Furthermore, this “is true for all married couples and not just for Christian couples.” Schönborn, then, focused on indissolubility, which is “rooted in the natural inclinations of the human person” and makes conjugal love “the greatest friendship” characterized by a “firm commitment to sharing and shaping their whole life.” Moreover, it also constitutes the “good of the children born of this union” who “want their parents to remain together.” For the cardinal, their good “should be the main concern, and cannot be obscured by any other interest or goal. And even if the parents separate, the children, as they grow up, should still hear their parents speak well of each other” because otherwise the child’s inner peace will be disturbed, and the wounds will be “difficult to heal.”