African Theologian Calls for a Church That Accompanies People in Every Circumstance as Vatican Amoris Laetitia Meeting Closes

VATICAN CITY, 14 October 2026 – Nigerian-born priest and theologian Fr Stanislaus Chu Ilo has called for a Church that walks with people in whatever circumstances they find themselves, insisting that everyone has a story.

Fr Chu Ilo, a research professor at the Centre for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago, spoke at the Holy See Press Office briefing that closed the Meeting held in the Vatican from 7 to 14 October. Pope Leo XIV convened the Meeting, “Ten Years After Amoris Laetitia: Proclaiming the Gospel with Families Today,” to mark the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation. The briefing was livestreamed on the Vatican News YouTube channel.

“I take back with me the joy of belonging to a Church that cares about the wounds and brokenness in people’s lives, not with a view to papering over them or quickly solving them,” he said. “Sometimes people want a quick solution, but here I see a Church that is staying with wounds to touch them, like Thomas touched the wounded side of Jesus, and then there was transformation.”

Asked how such accompaniment could be lived out, Fr Chu Ilo proposed first that every parish and diocese have a marriage and family life ministry. He pointed to the mission stations described by a bishop from the Philippines as an example of a Church that goes to families rather than waiting for them to arrive in crisis. “It is the Church that goes to the existential peripheries of life,” he said, adding that accompaniment means working side by side with people at every stage of their lives. That, he noted, is what Pope Leo asked of participants during the assembly.

He recalled the Pope’s question to the gathering: “What kind of Church will people find when they feel fragile?” His own answer was “a Church that stays with people’s wounds.”

Fr Chu Ilo shared the platform with Cardinal Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera, O.F.M., Archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador; Archbishop Charles Jude Scicluna of Malta; Fr Giacomo Costa, S.J., consultor to the General Secretariat of the Synod, responsible for methodology; and Monsignor Philippe Bordeyne, President of the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences and Coordinator of the Experts. Brazilian married couple Solange Gregory Schila and Alisson Roberto Schila also addressed journalists.

Among the points participants stressed was the need for timely spiritual and practical support in cases of domestic violence and abuse, with particular care for children and vulnerable people. They also spoke of reducing the stigma that can keep people from seeking help in times of difficulty, and of the role the family should play in the formation of priests.