Warning against Pelagianism, Pope Leo encourages bishops, laity to be ‘fishers of families’

June 03, 2025

In a message to participants in a Vatican seminar, Pope Leo XIV encouraged bishops and lay faithful alike to be “fishers of families.”

“it is the responsibility of the Bishops, as successors of the apostles and shepherds of Christ’s flock, to be the first to cast their nets into the sea and become ‘fishers of families,’“ the Pope wrote to participants in the seminar, organized by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life and entitled “Evangelizing WITH the Families of Today and Tomorrow: Ecclesiological and Pastoral Challenges.”

“Yet the laity are also called to participate in this mission, and to become, alongside ordained ministers, ‘fishers’ of couples, young people, children, women and men of all ages and circumstances, so that all may encounter the one Saviour,” Pope Leo continued in his message, dated May 28 and released June 2. “I ask you, then, to join in the work of the whole Church in seeking out those families who no longer come to us, in learning how to walk with them and to help them embrace the faith and become in turn ‘fishers’ of other families.”

Quoting St. Augustine, the Augustinian Pontiff also warned against Pelagianism, without mentioning the ancient heresy by name:

Faith is primarily a response to God’s love, and the greatest mistake we can make as Christians is, in the words of Saint Augustine, “to claim that Christ’s grace consists in his example and not in the gift of his person” (Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum, II, 146). How often, even in the not too distant past, have we forgotten this truth and presented Christian life mostly as a set of rules to be kept, replacing the marvelous experience of encountering Jesus—God who gives himself to us—with a moralistic, burdensome and unappealing religion that, in some ways, is impossible to live in concrete daily life.

“May the Holy Spirit guide you in discerning criteria and methods that support and promote the Church’s efforts to minister to families,” Pope Leo concluded. “Let us help families to listen courageously to Christ’s proposal and the Church’s words of encouragement!”

 

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Further information:

• Message of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV to Participants in the Seminar “Evangelizing with the Families of Today and Tomorrow: Ecclesiological and Pastoral Challenges” (Dicastery for Communication - Libreria Editrice Vaticana)
• Evangelizing WITH the Families of Today and Tomorrow: Ecclesiological and Pastoral Challenges (Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life)