Vatican survey on family not intended for public release, says spokesman for English bishops

April 15, 2014

A survey on marriage and family, distributed by the Vatican in preparation for the October meeting of the Synod of Bishops, was not intended for public release, according to a spokesman for the Catholic bishops of England and Wales.

Last year the Vatican distributed a series of questions to the world’s episcopal conferences, asking the bishops to share the questions “as widely as possible.” In several countries, the bishops published the questions in the form of a survey.

But Msgr. Marcus Stock, the secretary-general of the bishops’ conference of England and Wales, said that Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, who heads the office of the Synod, “wrote to the president of the bishops’ conference requesting that the summary, resulting from the responses of the various dioceses, not be made public.” Msgr. Stock made this revelation in a letter to the liberal group Call to Action, which had been pressing for release of the survey results.

 

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Further information:

• Releasing results of family survey would mean defying Pope, says bishops’ conference official (Catholic Herald)
• Vatican is not 'polling' Catholics on marriage, family (CWN, 11/5/13)