To inaugurate the 2016-17 academic year, the faculty, staff and students of the Central Session of the John Paul II Institute, accompanied by administrators of the other sessions of the Institute around the world, were received by Pope Francis at a private audience on October 27.
The Holy Father spoke of some of the challenges facing the family in today’s culture and the Church’s desire to assist each family to realize its mission as “an icon of God’s covenant with the whole human family.” He encouraged the Institute to assist the Church in the “development, in doctrine and in pastoral practice, of [the Church’s] own ability to make understandable, to people of our own time, the truth and beauty of God’s creative plan.”
The full text of Pope Francis’ remarks can be found here.