Amoris Laetitia

Amoris laetitia (Latin: The Joy of Love) is a post-synodal apostolic exhortation by Pope Francis. Dated 19 March 2016, it was released on 8 April 2016. It follows the Synods on the Family held in 2014 and 2015.

The document focuses on several of the issues of contemporary morality and church practice that had proved contentious during the third extraordinary and the fourteenth ordinary synods' presentations and discussions, surrounding access to communion, divorce, sexual mores, and pastoral practice.

Major controversy erupted at the end of 2016 when four Cardinals formally asked Pope Francis for clarifications, particularly on the issue of giving communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

The text was released initially in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The English text runs about 250 small-format pages with nearly 400 footnotes. Its introduction and 9 chapters comprise 325 numbered paragraphs. Quotations are drawn from the writings of earlier popes, documents of the Second Vatican Council and regional episcopal conferences, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther King, Jr. It includes what is thought to be the first reference to a film in a papal document, namely Babette's Feast (1987), along with references to works by Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, Antonin Sertillanges, Gabriel Marcel, and Mario Benedetti.

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