Synod council urges further discussion, preparation before October 2015 meeting
November 20, 2014
Vatican officials underlined the importance of preparing for the 2nd meeting of the Synod of Bishops, which will resume discussion of the family in the context of evangelization.
At meetings in Rome on November 18 and 19, under the direction of Pope Francis, the “ordinary council” of the Synod worked on the agenda for the October 2015 meeting. The council agreed that the final report from this year’s meeting should serve as the starting point for further discussions.
The office of the Synod will soon send all the world’s bishops the lineamenta, a listing of the topics for discussion at the next meeting. The council also promised to relay some guidance on “reception and elaboration” of the report from the recent Synod meeting. The responses to the lineamenta will be used to prepare an instrumentum laboris, the working document that will be discussed at next year’s session.
The council “agreed that the current period between the two assemblies, which is unprecedented in the history of the Synod as an institution, is of great importance.” The group encouraged bishops to discuss the themes of the Synod discussion within their episcopal conferences, and to explore “finding the means and the tools necessary to further involve various ecclesial bodies in the synodal reflection on the family.”
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