Press conference offers overview of extraordinary meeting on Amoris Laetitia

October 03, 2026

Three speakers at a Vatican press conference (video) discussed the upcoming extraordinary meeting on the tenth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia.

At the meeting—entitled “Ten years after Amoris Laetitia: proclaiming the Gospel with families today”—Pope Leo XIV, the heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches, and the presidents of the world’s episcopal conferences will discuss Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation on love in the family. The meeting will take place from October 7 to 14.

According to the preparatory document—prepared by the General Secretariat of the Synod and Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, and released on July 6—the assembly will have five themes:

• Families today: reality, beauty and challenges” Discerning the signs of the times through the experience of families and the Church’s pastoral commitment today
• Young people and the discovery of the vocation to marriage: Listening to young people and accompanying them in discovering the value of marriage
• Married life. The first years of marriage: a decisive time” Listening to and accompanying couples in the early years of married life and at every stage of life
• In the difficulties of life: accompanying and supporting: Walking with families in complex situations
• Christian families as subjects of the Church’s mission: Embracing conjugal and family love as an impetus for mission

Gabriella Gambino, undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, said at the October 2 press conference that the meeting will focus on discernment on how to include families as active participants in the Church’s evangelizing mission.

“The fundamental question, therefore, is how to vigorously renew pastoral care and involve families ever more deeply in the life and mission of the Church,” she said. “In many ecclesial contexts, the family still risks being regarded today as a passive recipient of pastoral care: merely a sector of pastoral ministry entrusted to a committee in a parish or diocese.”

Orietta Rachele Grazioli, professor of canon and family law at the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences, likewise said that the meeting “represents a fruitful opportunity to focus ever more closely on the family as a vital setting and agent of evangelization.”

“Ten years is a time of transformation and rapid growth, especially today, but it is also a sufficiently long period to allow us to observe and listen to the constants and emerging contexts, as well as the pastoral creativity born of the entire text of Amoris Lætitia, obviously in different ways depending on the regions of the world,” she added.

Father Giacomo Costa, S.J., consultor of the General Secretariat of the Synod, is responsible for the meeting’s methodology. He said:

A Document is not the end point: it must become part of the life of the Church and allow itself to be tested by experience. The Churches are called to translate its guidelines into their various contexts, to experiment with different approaches, to assess their fruits and difficulties, and then to come together to reflect on what has been experienced. In this perspective, evaluation does not mean passing judgement on the text—whether to praise or criticize it—but to learn from the experience gained since its publication, in order to recognize where the Spirit is leading the Church and what new steps He is asking us to take ...

Ten years on, the question is not what Amoris Lætitia says, but what we have learnt by seeking to live it out. The aim set out by Pope Leo XIV is to proceed, through mutual listening, to a synodal discernment on the steps to be taken today to proclaim the Gospel with families.

After discussing the meeting’s methodology of prayer and “conversation in the Spirit,” Father Costa revealed that “the fruits of the five days will be compiled into a summary report of the journey undertaken. This is not a new Final Document replacing the Apostolic Exhortation, but a summary of what the Assembly has recognized through listening and discernment.”

“The summary report, whilst being a working document, will also be made public,” he explained. “In any case, the work will not end with the report. The Presidents will be able to take what has emerged back to their respective Episcopal Conferences and, together with them, promote the appropriate steps in the various contexts.”

In convoking the heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches and the presidents of the world’s episcopal conferences to discuss a topic, Pope Leo has convened a meeting akin to, but not identical to, an extraordinary assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Ex officio members of an extraordinary assembly—of which there have been three since the Second Vatican Council (1969, 1985, 2014)—include the heads of Eastern Catholic Churches, the presidents of the world’s episcopal conferences, representatives of religious institutes, and heads of curial dicasteries.

 

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Further information:

• Press Conference to present the Meeting of the Holy Father Leo XIV with the Heads of the Eastern Churches and the Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences, entitled “Ten years after Amoris Lætitia: proclaiming the Gospel with families today” (10/2/26)
• Vatican releases preparatory document for extraordinary meeting on Amoris Laetitia (CWN, 7/7/26)