Lesotho: Catholic Bishops recommit to renewing the country’s pastoral ministry to family
Bishop Joseph Mopeli Sephamola says the Church in Lesotho plans to renew pastoral care for families amid changing social realities. Young couples separated by work, children raised by grandparents, cohabitation, rising divorce and challenges faced by divorced and remarried Catholics are among the concerns identified. The Lesotho Catholic Bishops’ Conference plans to revive the Family Desk at the Catholic Secretariat and extend the initiative across the country’s four dioceses. The Church is prioritizing stronger premarital formation and a more synodal, attentive approach that listens to couples and accompanies them according to their needs.
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Lesotho’s Catholic bishops plan to renew pastoral support for marriage and family life amid rising marital strain, changing family arrangements and growing divorce. Bishop Joseph Mopeli Sephamola says priorities include strengthening premarital formation, reviving family-support structures and accompanying couples through a more listening, synodal approach.
Sephamola, president of the Lesotho Catholic Bishops’ Conference and bishop of Qacha’s Nek, discussed the issue in connection with the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia. He said the document’s focus on family life was timely for Lesotho, where the Church sees an urgent need for coordinated pastoral action.
Some young couples live apart for work, leaving grandparents to raise their children—a responsibility that can weigh heavily on older relatives, particularly those in poor health. The Church is also concerned about cohabitation instead of sacramental marriage, couples seeking a church blessing after a traditional marriage, and a steadily rising divorce rate.
Sephamola also noted an increase in civil divorces among Catholics married in the Church. He said some divorced and remarried Catholics remain active and faithful parishioners but do not receive Holy Communion because of their marital status; the Church is working on accompaniment tailored to individual couples’ circumstances.
The bishops are working to revive the Family Desk at the Lesotho Catholic Secretariat, with the intention of extending the initiative across the country’s four dioceses. They also want to strengthen premarital instruction and formation while reaffirming marriage’s sacramental character.
Sephamola called for a more synodal and attentive approach, saying the Church should listen to couples’ stories and experiences and accompany them from there. He linked strong families with the well-being of society and described them as fertile ground for vocations to priestly and religious life.
Pastoral accompaniment should address families amid changing social realities
Pastoral accompaniment should take families’ changing circumstances seriously without either abandoning the Church’s vision of marriage and family or treating that vision as a substitute for listening. It means staying close to people in the concrete conditions of their lives: learning what they face, recognizing their dignity and capacity for grace, and offering guidance and practical support that help them pursue what is good.
Social and cultural changes affect family life in varied ways. Amoris laetitia calls for an approach attentive to the complexity of contemporary family realities, including both their strengths and their difficulties, rather than assuming that older social patterns remain intact or that every family faces the same situation.
Pope Leo XIV names some of the pressures that can shape families’ choices and expectations: economic insecurity, migration, violence, loneliness, and emotional fragility. He also notes a gap between many people’s longing for love, fidelity, and belonging and their difficulty imagining lifelong commitment as attainable. These realities are not merely background details; they affect what people can hope for and how they understand their future.
This is why accompaniment begins with listening. Leo describes pastoral ministry as placing Church leaders “in a school of listening,” where the experience of families—including hardship, loneliness, and apparent failure—can teach the Church as well as receive its care.
“Where do our pastoral language and practices succeed in opening a path, and where do they fail to touch people's hearts or assist their efforts to do what is good?”
That question makes accompaniment more than the delivery of general advice. It asks whether the Church’s words and programs actually help people take faithful, constructive steps amid the circumstances they face.
Listening does not mean that the Church must set aside its teaching. Leo says pastors remain responsible for proclaiming the beauty of God’s plan for marriage and family, while accompanying people as they seek to live their vocation in concrete circumstances. The two responsibilities belong together: clear proclamation and personal closeness.
Pope Francis cautions that simply stressing doctrinal, moral, or bioethical issues is not enough if families are not also encouraged to open themselves to grace. He describes marriage as a path of growth and fulfillment, and says that pastoral care should form consciences rather than replace them. In other words, accompaniment supports people in discerning and responding to the Gospel amid limitations; it is neither a dismissal of moral teaching nor a mechanical application that ignores personal circumstances.
A welcoming approach also need not dilute the Gospel’s demands. Amoris laetitia observes that people can be moved by the Church’s guidance and by the grace of the sacraments, while also warning against spending pastoral energy mainly denouncing the surrounding culture instead of proposing ways to find true happiness. Its model joins a demanding ideal to compassion and closeness toward people who are fragile.
Accompaniment should attend not only to spiritual questions but also to the burdens that constrain family life. Familiaris consortio calls for special pastoral commitment to families in objectively difficult circumstances, including migrant families, single-parent families, families experiencing violence, and older people living alone. It also says that pastoral care should address, as far as possible, the deeper cultural, economic, and legal causes of their needs.
A United States bishops’ directory gives practical examples for Church ministries: keep informed about changes in families’ lives; be attentive to families’ different forms and particular needs; consider work schedules and economic pressures; and examine whether parish programs help or hinder family well-being. It cautions that even programs aimed at individuals can affect family unity and stability.
This has a concrete implication: a parish should not assume that participation in every program is possible or that more commitments automatically mean better pastoral care. Families themselves need a voice in setting priorities and assessing what their time, energy, and resources can sustain.
Families are not only recipients of pastoral services. Leo XIV points to their own role in the Church’s mission through fidelity, care, forgiveness, raising children, transmitting faith, caring for vulnerable people, and serving their communities. Pastoral accompaniment should therefore strengthen families’ ability to live and share their vocation, not treat them merely as problems to be managed.
This also requires reaching families who feel distant or excluded from ordinary Church activities. Leo has urged Christian communities to pay particular attention to families who do not feel involved, yet may still desire a community in which they can grow and journey with others.
The central pastoral balance is therefore fidelity without rigidity and compassion without indifference. The Church must listen carefully to changing realities, address concrete pressures, and remain close to families in difficulty, while continuing to proclaim the Christian vocation to love and family life. The sources do not present these tasks as competing priorities; they describe them as joined responsibilities of a Church that both teaches and accompanies.