As the Vatican Press Office announced on Saturday, Pope Leo XIV received the prefect of the Vatican authority responsible for family issues, Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, as well as the secretary general of the worldwide synod, Cardinal Mario Grech, in audience.
There was initially no official communication about the content of the conversation. In April, the Pope had commissioned the two cardinals to do so for the period from 7 to 14. October in Rome scheduled international meetings of all bishops' conference chairmen to prepare.
The meeting is about an inventory of the pastoral situation of couples and families ten years after the Pope's document "Amoris laetitia".
Meetings of all the bishops' conference chairmen are an extremely rare format in the Catholic Church.
In terms of church law, they are not considered synods, but they are organized similarly to synods.
Cautious opening ten years ago
In the text "Amoris laetitia," Pope Francis had at the time initiated a cautious opening of the church to remarried divorcees and a different approach to couples in "irregular" situations.
Some conservative cardinals and bishops had responded with sharp criticism.
The meeting, which is now scheduled, will provide information on how this is seen in various regions of the world today.
Also up for debate are the text passages of "Amoris laetitia" about same-sex couples. At the time, Pope Francis wrote: "As for plans to make the links between homosexual persons equal to marriage, there is no foundation whatsoever for making analogies between homosexual communities and God's plan for marriage and the family, even in a broader sense."
At the same time, he called for people with homosexual orientation to be respected in their dignity and to treat them with respect.
The internal church debate over the handling of same-sex couples has evolved since then.
The paper "Fiducia supplicans " by the Vatican Prefect of the Faith Víctor Fernández of 2023 contributed to this, which enables an informal church blessing of same-sex couples.