Vatican Sets Stage for Tradition and Controversy at October Synod

The National Catholic Register ^ | 6/24/15 | Edward Pentin

[marshmallow]

NEWS ANALYSIS: According to one priest, the working document, issued Tuesday, reflects fidelity to the Church’s traditional teaching and the diversity of opinions within the Church today regarding hot-button issues.

VATICAN CITY — A highly anticipated working document for the upcoming synod on the family, published by the Vatican on Tuesday, pushes back on same-sex relationships, reaffirms much of the traditional Church’s teaching on the family, but controversially offers an opening for divorced-and-civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

Although praised for being attentive to a diversity of opinions within the Church on a wide variety of issues to do with marriage and the family, the instrumentum laboris has also been criticized for including a number of proposals that were rejected in the final report of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on Marriage and the Family in 2014.

The 21,000-word document, so far available only in Italian, will serve as the basis and reference point during discussions at the 14th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to take place Oct. 4-25.

This document summarizes the proposals from last October’s synodal documents that will be used in preparation for the assembly in October. The synod will study the theme: “The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and in the Contemporary World.”

Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, told reporters Tuesday that the instrumentum laboris, which partly draws on feedback from questionnaires sent to dioceses worldwide, “reliably reflects the perception and expectations of the whole Church on the crucial issue of the family.”

Three Parts

The text is divided into three parts: “Listening to the Challenges of the Family,” “Discernment of the Family Vocation” and “The Mission of the Family Today.”

It will be sent to bishops and those participating in the synod to help them.......

[ebb tide]

Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, told reporters Tuesday that the instrumentum laboris, which partly draws on feedback from questionnaires sent to dioceses worldwide, “reliably reflects the perception and expectations of the whole Church on the crucial issue of the family.”

Baldisseri has it backwards. It's not for the Church to respond to what's perceived and expected of it, via "questionnaires". It is for the Church to declare what is expected of Her subjects, not vice versa.

[NKP_Vet]

The annulment process will be changed a little to get rid of some red tape, but no communion for those divorced and civilly remarried until they get are granted an annulment. They are living in sin, end of story.