What is the legacy of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia,” released five years ago today?

Pope Francis: “We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.”

While much ink has been spilled by Vatican watchers interpreting how the pope’s writings and structural changes will shape the church for years to come, Pope Francis’ gestures may do even more to define his legacy.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, named today to the influential Congregation for Bishops, has been known as a “Pope Francis bishop”—one who generally follows the pope’s lead in prioritizing social justice issues and dialogue over culture war flashpoints.

Whenever dioceses choose to lift dispensations, like with other difficult pandemic-related decisions, individual believers will have to decide for themselves when they feel safe going back to church.

No matter how many times you hear it described thus—jokingly or not—an annulment is not just “Catholic divorce.” Church teaching is not that the marriage in question failed, but that the marriage never existed in a sacramental sense.