Vatican sends survey ahead of pope’s synod on family
(By Sandra Cordon)
(ANSA) – Vatican City, November 5 – The Vatican is asking its priests around the world for input on controversial issues ranging from same-sex marriage to surrogate motherhood to polygamy as its prepares for an extraordinary meeting on the family called by Pope Frances for October 2014.
The 38-question survey, sent to national conferences of bishops all over the world, seeks input from local officials to help the Vatican as it prepares for an unusual assembly of bishops designed to develop new directions for the Church on issues of family relations.
The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization is the official title selected for the third extraordinary general assembly of the synod of bishops to be held in the Vatican from 5 to 19 October 2014. This event will be only the third such assembly since the synod’s creation in 1965.
“The social and spiritual crisis, so evident in today’s world, is becoming a pastoral challenge in the Church’s evangelizing mission concerning the family, the vital building-block of society and the ecclesial community,” synod organizers said in a document released Tuesday.
“Never before has proclaiming the gospel on the family in this context been more urgent and necessary”. The Vatican says the extraordinary general assembly in October 2014 will focus on experiences and proposals on how best to proclaim the gospel of the family, while an ordinary general assembly to be held in 2015 will seek working guidelines in the pastoral care of the person and the family. “Concerns which were unheard of until a few years ago have arisen today as a result of different situations,” including same-sex unions, cohabitation outside of marriage, adoption of children into unconventional families, mixed and inter-religious marriages, polygamy, the caste system, and surrogate motherhood, organizers said.
The influence of the media and popular culture on marriage and family life are also on the agenda.
Francis, who has struck a more moderate tone than his predecessors Benedict XVI and John Paul II, has called for more debate on the Church’s relationship with the modern family. At a news conference Tuesday to discuss the synod, Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto, special secretary of the synod, said he had no ready answers to what the survey would find. But, he added, the pope’s message of respect and tolerance would be important to the event, including in discussions of such hot topics as gay marriage.
“A fixed point that Pope Francis has reiterated is the attention and the utmost respect for every human person and therefore also for gay people,” said Forte.
“The Church must grow in understanding, it is not a static body”.