Couples in crisis can rediscover hope with help of other couples - Pope

(September 26, 2008) Pope Benedict on Friday underscored the indissolubility of Christian marriage, saying couples whose relationships enter into crisis can with the help of God and other couples make of the difficult moments a passageway to a new phase of life. “Today, in fact when a couple enters into crisis, many people are ready to advise separation,” the Pope observed, adding “Even to couples married in name of the Lord divorce is easily proposed, forgetting that man cannot separate what God has joined together.” He was speaking to Retrouvaille, an international movement of married couples founded in 1977 in Canada, committed to the continued healing of their marriages and sharing their stories and talents to promote and spread the healing ministry to other couples in crisis. Pope Benedict told the group that that when a marriage enters a crisis, transforming a dream into a nightmare and despair, there is need for a group of true friends who are ready to share a little of their hope with those who have lost it. Thus at the moment of break-up, the Pope said, you become for the troubled couple a concrete possibility of a positive point of reference in whom they can confide in their moment of despair. Regarding them as custodians of a great hope for spouses who have lost it, Pope Benedict told members of Retrovaille that for this mission of theirs they need to feed their spiritual life.