Meeting held to prepare guidelines for next Synod on the Family
(Vatican Radio) The Ordinary Council of the Synod of Bishops met this week (18 and 19 November) to reflect on the outcome of this October’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family and to prepare the guidelines for next year’s Ordinary Synod. Scheduled to take place from 4th to 25th october 2015, the next Synod’s theme is “The vocation and the mission of the family in the Church and in the contemporary world.”
In an opening address at this week’s meeting, the Synod’s Secretary General Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri spoke of the freedom, sincerity and spirt of brotherly communion that characterized this October’s Synod which enabled each participant to offer his own contribution to the discussions. The participants agreed that the episcopal conferences should carry out further study and discussion of the themes relating to the family between now and the next Synod.
Most of the time during this week’s meeting was taken up with preparing the guidelines for next year’s Synod which are being taken from the final report or “Relatio Synodi” of this October’s Synod. These guidelines will be sent to the Bishops’ Conferences at the beginning of December and their replies will be sent back so they can be incorporated into the next Synod’s working document or “Instrumentum Laboris” before the summer of 2015.