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Someone called my attention today to the tragic case of Caleb Flynn in the United States—a Christian worship pastor recently convicted of murdering his wife, Ashley, while their two young daughters were at home. Evidence presented at the trial also revealed an extramarital relationship. He has now been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
It is difficult to imagine the wounds left behind, especially in the lives of the children: a mother violently taken from them, and a father responsible for her death.
The story struck me because I am presently in Rome for our meeting marking ten years of Amoris Laetitia, reflecting precisely on how the Church proclaims the Gospel with families today.
Earlier, Pope Leo XIV asked us: “What kind of Church do people encounter precisely when they are most fragile?”
Cases like this remind us that “family fragility” is not an abstract pastoral category. Sometimes behind the doors of a seemingly Christian home are relationships already being torn apart by infidelity, deception, abuse, violence, loneliness or despair.
And accompaniment cannot mean simply keeping a family together at all costs. It must also mean learning to recognize danger, protecting the vulnerable, especially children, confronting wrongdoing with truth, and helping wounded people find justice, healing and hope.
Perhaps this too is part of proclaiming the Gospel to and with families: helping our homes become places where love is not merely preached, but truly lived—and where those who are wounded know that the Church will not look away
