“Every true marriage, even a non-sacramental one, is a gift of God to the spouses,” the pope told the tribunal members on Jan. 27. “Matrimony is always a gift! Conjugal fidelity rests on divine fidelity; conjugal fruitfulness is based on divine fruitfulness. Man and woman are called to accept this gift and freely correspond to it with the reciprocal gift of self.”

As the members inaugurated the tribunal’s judicial year, Pope Francis said he wanted to focus his talk on marriage “because there is a great need in the church and in   the world to rediscover the meaning and value of the conjugal union between a man and a woman on which the family is based.”

In fact, part of the reason for the “crisis that is affecting so many families is the practical ignorance — personal and collective — regarding marriage,” he said.