Putting a child in the centre.

On children, families and theology

1. A child in the centre

Not long after Pope Francis took office, photos went around the world which showed him taking children
along with him. More than once, in the early period of Pope Francis’ pontificate, I started a lecture on
theology and children with a picture of Pope Francis, and with the phrase “he placed a child in the centre,”
referring to Matthew’s Gospel (Mt 18:1-4), but also to Pope Francis’ symbolic actions. By giving children
special attention, the pope honoured his choice of the name “Francis:” a choice for the most vulnerable,
for people who are often not seen. As a symbolic act, the images of Pope Francis with a child on his arm
or close to him are very telling, but as a practical theologian, in this contribution I want to think further
about whether Pope Francis’ theology (and by extension, the theology of the church’s magisterium) gives
appropriate attention to children. As a next step, I ask the same question with regard to families and parents:
what can a dialogue between academic theology and theology drawn from the church’s magisterium teach
us about this?

2. Appropriate attention to children?

Since the beginning of the 20th century, quite a few articles and books have appeared on children from
different disciplines of theology based on the dual question: how can we think theologically about children,
and how do children themselves think theologically. To this end, theologians have been inspired by a
growing attention to the perspective of children themselves; a perspective that has received more and more
attention since the 1980s, leading, among other things, to the adoption of the United Nations Convention
on the Rights of the Child in 1989. In general, two views predominate when talking about children – both,
incidentally, also apply to adults. Either the focus is on the vulnerability, or on the strength, autonomy and
“subjecthood” of children (or of other groups of people). When people disagree on how best to act, this
often goes back to where they place the greatest emphasis, either (a) on people’s vulnerability, or (b) on
their own strength. For children, two focuses can be distinguished within the broader rubric of
“vulnerability” (a), specifically to “socialise” the child or to “protect” the child. Under the rubric of strength
(b) falls a focus on the child as subject and a focus on participation rights.
In Pope Francis’ words and actions, there is a particular focus on children from the point of view of
care for upbringing and education (socialisation) on the one hand, and from the point of view of protection
(safeguarding) on the other. This attention is generally positive. The church’s teaching, throughout the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries, has emphasised in many ways the importance of a Christian
upbringing, at home with parents, at school and within Catholic organisations. It is important to note
Francis’ explicit message that every child has the right in principle to be baptised if parents request it and
that priests should not refuse to do this on the basis of the parents’ relationship status. In his apostolic
exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (2013), he used the phrase “the Church is not a tollhouse” (EG 47) to this
end. This view was not new, but when Pope Francis spelled it out so explicitly, the message came across
clearly. Children of same-sex partners should also be able to be baptised, Pope Francis has said. Here he
was illustrating that, although public opinion, and sometimes priests throughout the world often interpret
church teaching as radically condemning relationships outside church marriage, this view requires some
nuance.
When I was asked at my doctoral defence in 2005 what message I would like to pass on from my
doctoral research on families to the pope elect at the time (who would become Pope Benedict XVI), I
answered without hesitation: “more attention needs to be paid to domestic violence, because it is not good
that only idealised images are put forward and certain forms of relationships are rejected. Domestic violence
is explicitly mentioned far too rarely from within the church.” Today, almost 20 years later, I am pleased to
note that attention is now increasingly paidand that in recent church documents, by Pope Francis and
others, violence within families, particularly intimate partner violence and violence against children, is more
explicitly mentioned as a problem. This is in line with emphasising the importance of child protection
 Francis will undoubtedly be remembered as the first pope to focus explicitly on the issues of climate
change and ecology. His encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015) rightly triggered a movement within the Catholic
Church, where commitment to sustainability is central. Needless to say, this focus on sustainability is an
important form of child protection by making sure there is a liveable world for them and for future
generations.
In addition, the Catholic Church’s teaching often offers a prophetic voice in debates around the right
to life of the unborn child or the care of children with disabilities. Care for vulnerable life takes precedence
over autonomous choices in the church’s teaching. The loud voice we sometimes hear when it comes to
protecting the unborn life of the child many would also have expected to hear on the subject of protecting
children in all sorts of contexts, including within the church itself.
This brings us to one of the aspects for which Francis, like his predecessors, has had to take particular
responsibility, namely sexual and other forms of abuse within the church itself, especially the abuse of
children. Not surprisingly, many victims/survivors of sexual abuse have been disappointed in the Church’s
response, even under Pope Francis. In Belgium, the case of Vangheluwe, the bishop who abused his cousin
and whom the bishops asked to be laicised, was one of the examples that provoked the reaction too little, too
late. Only in view of the imminent papal visit to Belgium in September 2024, was there any response to this
request from the Belgian bishops.
Pope Francis rightly responded several times also to one of the many elements that perpetuate abuse,
namely “clericalism.” Specifically, in the context of abuse, this means that priests are protected because they
are priests and church leaders, and believers assume a priest surely cannot commit abuse because he stands
for all the good values associated with Catholicism. However, a thorough theological renewal would be
needed to avoid these phenomena. Too often, reactions to abuse in the church are still limited to reacting
to “the problem.” Francis has taken a new approach here too.
However, a real culture of safeguarding, in which all actions and especially theological thinking are
characterised by care for vulnerable people and by recognition of the institution’s own shortcomings, is not
yet evident within the Catholic Church worldwide. The reflex reaction is often that the institution needs to
be protected (“we have already done so much for victims”), without fundamentally looking at the processes
and patterns of thinking that contribute to all kinds of violence and abuse. Here we might think of the
search for appropriate language around forgiveness (not as a curtain-raiser or a quick fix). We need anew
interpretation of shared leadership, a trauma-informed theology that does not just speak about guilt and sin
in the singular, but looks especially at forms of cultural and social sin.
Besides focusing on child protection (as socialisation and protection), it is important that children are
also taken seriously as subjects Children are not just vulnerable, potential or actual victims of all kinds of
abuse, or “soon-to-be-adults” who still have much to learn and who represent the future of the church.
Children are first and foremost active subjects with their own views, their own sensitivities, their own
theological insights. This is how children are defined within global research on children’s spirituality and
on theologising with children.
Giving children a voice is important because it means recognising that their own competences are seen
and that people – children included – can offer an active contribution to the well-being of others. These
may be their parents, or teachers, or other children, for whom they want to be meaningful and to be able
to contribute something, even when they are still small. Increasingly, organisations in society focus on
participation pathways, not only in the sense of being able to participate, but also in the sense of having a
voice. In a way, the synodal process, on which Francis focuses heavily, could also be interpreted along these
lines. Young people can express their views. The question is of course to what extent young people’s views
are taken into account and whether children are also given the chance to contribute and express themselves,
for instance in local church communities. In terms of “participation” and “giving a voice to children and
also listening to them,” there is still room for growth, certainly in theology drawn from the magisterium.

3. Speaking theologically about families

Attention to children is traditionally linked mainly with attention to families. However, this can be done in
many ways and with many different meanings. Below I outline some possible interpretations.
On a visit to KU Leuven in June 2024, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy
for Life, in response to a question about the use of contraceptives and the role of personal conscience,
spoke of the importance of a theology of the family and said that the church does not actually have one. In
dialogue with my own academic theology, three further thoughts come to mind.
Firstly, “theology of the family” in this context is mostly used as the focus on having children, being
open to children, and much less on dealing with children once they are born, on parenting and daily life
with children in family contexts. Secondly, the church does have such a theology, albeit hardly within what
is considered as magisterial theology, but among academic theologians. Since the beginning of the twenty-
first century, and just before, the call for a “theology of families” (in the plural) has been very explicit, and
several fellow theologians, from Catholic and Protestant backgrounds, have written about parenthood,
especially motherhood, about families in their diversity, about the role of families in wider society, and
about society’s care for families. Thirdly, a theology of “the family” or of “families” has indeed often been
absent from the normative speech of the church, as the focus is usually more strongly on the partner
relationship, and especially marriage. This also applies to the post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia, issued
by Pope Francis in 2016. Amoris Laetitia is subtitled a “post-synodal exhortation on love in the family.”
Although there is attention paid to parent-child relationships, pregnancy, birth, and parenting, the main
emphasis is on the relationship between husband and wife.
Amoris Laetitia was also generally received with great enthusiasm at KU Leuven. The exhortation
recognises that a lot of good can be found even in situations that do not formally conform to church
teaching. The pope talks about the importance of “discernment” and recognises that in a lot of pastoral
contexts, pastoral leaders and believers need to follow a process of discernment in order to know what is
good, rather than simply following general principles. A lot of elements of the ethics of growth, as
developed at KU Leuven by Roger Burggraeve, recur in a slightly different form in Amoris Laetitia. My own
focus on paying attention to people’s resilience, even in situations that do not formally conform to the
church’s ideal, can also be found in Amoris Laetitia to some extent.
Amoris Laetitia and the global survey that preceded it gave a lot of believers hope. At the same time,
there are also issues that have not changed and where critical thinking is required. I mention two here -
other people might have different emphases.
First, the focus on “discernment” makes a lot of sense, but, as in past decades, or perhaps centuries, the
solution for people suffering under ecclesiastical commandments and prohibitions is sought in a dichotomy
between (relatively) mild pastoral action on the one hand and a more or less fixed moral law and norm on
the other. This dichotomy often sounds “liberating” but at the same time, in church contexts, it takes
attention away from the pain people experience when excluded or rejected. People who do not conform to
ecclesial norms, especially those who identify as LGBTQIA+, or people who have remarried after divorce,
or have had children using IVF, often experience some form of pastoral recognition, but have to keep
finding a way through some form of moral disapproval by the church, their own conscience, and their
eventual integration into faith communities. While there are hopeful signs under Francis that the “moral
censure” given is less severe than under previous popes, we should not lose sight of how church teaching
itself is a cause of suffering for people. We should rejoice too hastily at limited progress.
A second criticism that can be made of most of Francis’ generally very well-received documents
concerns a critical view of the theory of complementarity. Both in Laudato Si’ and Amoris Laetitia, and in
many other documents, the model of complementarity, explicitly put forward by Pope John Paul II,
resonates. Within strongly patriarchal contexts, this vision resonates as emancipatory for women: the theory
of complementarity holds that men and women are equal, but each is responsible word for different
domains. The focus on equivalence is of course very important, but at the same time, from the theological
literature, there are at least five critical questions to be raised about this approach, which sometimes
explicitly, sometimes implicitly, resonate in many church documents.
First, it sounds as if complementarity indicates an “arrangement of juxtaposition:” two domains (work
outside the home/public life, and work inside the home/family life) that are juxtaposed and equally
important. Each of the partners takes on different responsibilities, but both domains are equally important.
That is the theory, but in reality, in many social contexts, work inside the home is still considered inferior
because it is not paid, not visible, and often linked to what women do. Women are also encouraged to work
outside the home in church teaching, but usually that sounds like a second, additional responsibility, in
addition to that first, more important, task in the family.
A second drawback of this focus is that men’s caring role within the home often remains invisible or
receives little encouragement. However, it is very important for men to be able to take care of the household
and the children at home, as this care is also part of their vocation and of the development of their own
competences. The gender role division that is sometimes assumed does little justice either to women or to
men.
A third difficulty with the theory of complementarity is its strong focus on the interdependence of men
and women. This may sound positive, but we know from research on violence within family relationships
that when people have too many romantic expectations of each other, hoping that their spouse will be their
“soulmate” or their other half then this can actually be stifling. Statements like “you are everything to me”
are also used in the context of intimate partner violence to isolate the abused partner from a wider group
of people, even from their own family. Also, if we expect the other person to ‘complete us’ this can also
quickly lead to disillusionment. Partners cannot simply complement one other’s deficits. In this respect, a
model of complementarity can also be viewed with scepticism in terms of the quality of relationships it
extols.
A fourth difficulty concerns the implicit idea that a partner – usually the woman – needs another partner
in order to lead a full life. Partner relationships are very valuable, but even when people do not have a
partner they lead meaningful lives and are valuable in their own right. A person does not become
“somebody” only when he or she has a partner.
A fifth difficulty is the one often mentioned first by students: the theory of complementarity is strongly
heteronormative. It is about relationships between a man and a woman in church teaching. A separate
contribution could be written about the limited openness to all aspects associated with the acronym
LGBTQIA+.

4. Room for growth

When Pope Francis appeared on the balcony in 2013 immediately after his election, tears welled up in my
eyes with emotion, especially because of the choice of the name Francis and the hope for change and choice
for the most vulnerable. In 2024, a certain ambiguity prevails. On the one hand, very positive steps have
been taken. Children have received more attention, especially also in their vulnerable contexts. Children
with experiences of migration, children in poverty, children in precarious family situations, children in
situations of war: Francis stood up for all of them. He also made some remarkable statements and
undertook some symbolic acts in family contexts, including expressing some openness to same-sex
relationships. “Who am I to judge?” he said as early as 2013 about people who identify as homosexual. I
mentioned earlier the issue of baptism for children independent of their family situation. . A lot of the
elements in Amoris Laetitia contribute to a positive valuing of people in different contexts. At the same time,
greater dialogue with theologians worldwide and the integration of a greater diversity of theological insights
could contribute to ecclesial speech and action that will be experienced as less painful by those most
affected.

Dillen, Annemie, Het gezin: à-Dieu? Een contextuele benadering van gezinnen in ethisch, pedagogisch en
pastoraaltheologisch perspectief (Brussels: KVAB, 2009).
Dillen, Annemie, “Children and Christian Theology,” in St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, ed. Brendan N.
Wolfe et al. (St Andrews: University of St Andrews, 2022). This article is freely available digitally.