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The Holy See presented this Friday the details of the quote, entitled “Ten years of Amoris laetitia: proclaiming the Gospel with families today.”
The meetings will take place behind closed doors in the Paul VI Hall and, although the meeting will not be formally a Synod, it will expressly assume the methodology developed during the recent synodal process, including the so-called “Conversation in the Spirit”.
There will also be no new outcome document to replace Amoris laetitia. The work will be collected in a synthesis report, which will be discussed by the assembly, subsequently delivered to the Pope and made public.
Leo XIV will personally open the work on Wednesday, October 7 and will preside over the closing Mass on 14, at 10 a.m., in St. Peter’s Square.
An “evaluation assembly”
The Jesuit Giacomo Costa, consultant of the General Secretariat of the Synod and responsible for the methodology of the meeting, defined the meeting as a kind of “assembly of evaluation”, an expression taken precisely from the phase of application of the Synod on synodality.
Costa explained that the intention will not be to comment again on the exhortation or make a judgment on it “to exalt or criticize it”, but to examine the experience accumulated during this decade.
“Ten years later, the question is not what Amoris laetitia says, but what we have learned trying to live it,” he said.
The convocation of Leo XIV himself speaks of carrying out, through reciprocal listening, a “synodal discernment” on the steps that the Church must take to announce the Gospel to families, “in the light of Amoris laetitia” and taking into account the experiences developed in the different local Churches.
According to Costa, participants should wonder what has matured during these ten years, what continues to be difficult, what issues cannot be avoided and what new steps must be taken.
Chapter VIII and a Decade of Controversy
Amoris laetitia was published by Francis on March 19, 2016, after the two Synods on Family celebrated in 2014 and 2015. The exhortation broadly addresses marriage, the education of children, the transmission of faith and marriage preparation.
However, it was especially its chapter VIII, “To accompany, discern and integrate frailty”, which opened one of the main doctrinal and pastoral debates of the pontificate of Francis.
The discussion focused particularly on the possibility that some divorced people who had contracted a new civil union could access the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist without assuming the commitment to live in continence.
In September 2016, Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra and Joachim Meisner referred Francis and the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith five dubia requesting clarifications on different points of the exhortation.
The first directly asked whether, after Amoris laetitia, sacramental acquittal could be granted and the Communion admitted to a person who, remaining linked by a valid marriage, lived more uxorio with another without fulfilling the conditions previously established by St. John Paul II in Familiaris consortio.
The other four questions addressed fundamental questions of moral theology, including the existence of absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts and the role of conscience. Upon receiving no response, the four cardinals made the Dubia public in November of that year.
Francisco and the interpretation of Buenos Aires
In parallel, the bishops of the Pastoral Region of Buenos Aires developed criteria to interpret and apply chapter VIII.
The document stated that, when circumstances made possible, the divorcees could be proposed in a new union to the commitment to live in continence. He added, however, that in certain more complex situations and after a process of discernment, “the possibility of access to the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist could be opened” when circumstances attenuated responsibility and guilt existed.
Francis expressly endorsed those criteria in a letter dated September 5, 2016. The then Pontiff stated that the document explained “fully the meaning” of chapter VIII and added: “There are no other interpretations.”
Both the letter of Francis and the criteria of the Argentine bishops were later published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, accompanied by a rescript that established its publication as “Authentic Magisterium”.
The issue was officially addressed again in 2023. In response to several questions from Cardinal Dominik Duka, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith argued that Francis maintained the proposal of continence for the divorced in new union, but that there could be difficulties in putting it into practice.
The Dicastery pointed out that Amoris laetitia allows, “in certain cases” and after the corresponding discernment, the administration of the Reconciliation even when it is not possible to live that continence, and reiterated the possibility of access to the Reconciliation and the Eucharist when circumstances that mitigate responsibility and guilt.
Five issues about marriage and family
The October meeting will be structured around five blocks: “Families today: reality, beauty and challenges”; “Young people and the discovery of the marriage vocation”; “Marriage life. The first years of marriage: a decisive time; “In the difficulties of life: accompanying and sustaining”; and “Christian families, subjects of the mission of the Church.”
Gabriella Gambino, undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life, explained that the substantive question will be “how to renew pastoral care with vigor and make families increasingly participate in the life and mission of the Church”.
Gambino defended a family pastoral that begins long before marriage and later accompanied the different stages of life: from childhood and the choice of the marriage vocation to the first years of coexistence, difficulties and moments of crisis.
During his speech he also recalled a few words spoken by Leo XIV before the young people during his trip to Spain: “Marriage is also a vocation. Don’t be afraid to get married and start a family!”
Religious marriages fall
Among the reasons that have led the Vatican to raise this reflection is the decline of religious marriages in traditionally Christian countries.
Gambino pointed out that in Poland religious marriages celebrated during the last five years have decreased by 45%. In Australia, while in 1970 they accounted for 88% of marriages, in 2024 they represented only 16%.
According to the undersecretary, these data, despite coming from very different contexts, show the need to accompany the marriage choice and reinforce the transmission of the faith within families.
The Vatican official also pointed out that the need to listen directly to the presidents of the Episcopal Conferences has been maturing during these ten years through the ad limina visits, in which the bishops have transferred their concerns about the pastoral difficulties and the problems that families currently face.
"Conversation in the Spirit"
Although the meeting will not be a Synod, Costa explained that it will assume “consciously the matured method in the synod experience of recent years”.
After the enthronement of the Word and the inaugural speeches, the first afternoon will include a period of reflection and prayer led by the Dominican Sister Helen Alford, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
During the five thematic days families, bishops and experts will intervene, but most of the time will be dedicated to the work of the participants.
The groups will use the so-called ‘Conversation in the Spirit’, articulated in three rounds: exposition of each participant’s experience, reaction to the listen of others and joint elaboration of the conclusions drawn from the exchange. Among the interventions there will also be moments of silence.
Costa said that the purpose will not necessarily be to reach an agreement: “We will not try to erase the differences to reach a consensus: also a better understood divergence can be a fruit of listening.”
The conclusions of each group will be subsequently transferred to the assembly for discussion in plenary session.
About 248 bishops and closed-door sessions
According to the data offered by Gambino, around 248 bishops will participate in the meeting, in addition to some families and experts.
All Episcopal Conferences and Eastern Churches will be represented. Only in some cases, due to objective difficulties, the president of an Episcopal Conference will be replaced by a delegate.
Families from different geographical contexts will also participate. Five marriages will offer their testimony during the days, although the Vatican has decided not to reveal their identities to preserve the privacy of their personal and family experiences.
The work will be carried out behind closed doors.
There will be no final document, but a public report
The meeting will also not lead to a new outcome document.
Costa explained that the results of the five thematic days will be collected in a “synthetic report of the path traveled”. A committee, in which the participants will also be represented, will verify that the text faithfully reflects what emerged during the talks.
The report will then be discussed by the assembly itself before being delivered to Leo XIV and, despite its character as a working document, it will be made public.
“The real outcome of the meeting will not be the report we will produce, but the paths it is capable of re-launching in the Churches,” Costa said.
The presidents of the Episcopal Conferences will then return to their respective countries with the possibility of transferring the conclusions and promoting the initiatives they deem appropriate in their local Churches.
Ten years after the publication of Amoris laetitia, Rome will return to an exhortation that has deeply marked family pastoral care over the past decade and whose reception has also been accompanied by important doctrinal controversies. This time it will be Leo XIV who will receive the balance of the experience of the local Churches and the report resulting from a week of synodal discernment.