Empowerment and Capability Approach: A Critical Reading of Amoris Laetitia on the Faithful Living in "Irregular Family Situations"

The concepts of empowerment, agency and the capability approach are widely discussed in relation to poverty (Gutiérrez, 1983 and Narayan, 2002), development (Sen, 1999) and women (Nussbaum, 2000). There has been some success in helping poor people become active agents in liberating themselves by applying these notions. Although the Church has taught the principle of subsidiarity for some years now, she has rarely applied it to herself and moreover she has hardly embraced empowerment and the discourse or approach of capability. I think that implementing Amoris Laetitia by applying these concepts will create favourable conditions for the faithful living in “irregular family situations” to become the agents of their own discernment by listening to their conscience, by sharing their experiences and by participating actively in dialogue and accompaniment. The purpose of this article is to examine to which degree Amoris Laetitia reflects these notions in dealing with the faithful living in “irregular family situations.” It aims also at showing that the exhortation seems to be aware of the problems of the existing clerical and paternalistic approaches and tries to overcome its shortcomings by insisting on the importance of individuals’ consciences and discernment. In doing so, I believe that the exhortation opens itself to these concepts. Despite its good intentions and efforts Amoris Laetitia does not succeed in doing this. If the Church wishes to accompany and to care effectively for people who are experiencing such situations, I argue that the discourse of Amoris Laetitia should integrate empowerment, agency and the capability approach so as to be more a bottom-up, dialogical and empowering approach.

Publication year:2019