The synthesis report of the Vatican meeting marking the tenth anniversary of Amoris laetitia, which will not be published until Leo XIV has read it, takes the notion of “fragility” beyond the scope of chapter VIII and records a broad convergence around the word discernment. This was explained on Wednesday, 14 October, at the closing press conference in the Holy See Press Office by Msgr Philippe Bordeyne, president of the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II for the Sciences of Marriage and the Family and coordinator of the meeting’s experts. Bordeyne himself acknowledged, according to the SIR agency, that the text “is not yet available and it is not known how it will be made public.”
According to his presentation, the participants agreed to use the term fragility without limiting it to the complex situations addressed in the eighth chapter of the exhortation. The report presents it as a “common condition of humanity and not as a label that excludes,” and re-reads it in the light of Magnifica humanitas, the encyclical of Leo XIV, which, Bordeyne said, considers fragility part of our magnificent humanity. The coordinator expressed surprise at the broad convergence on the word discernment, which appears in the title of one of the document’s sections. The two axes he presented are entitled “Together in a Changing World” and “Young People and the Discovery of the Vocation to Marriage.”
Chapter VIII of Amoris laetitia is precisely entitled “Accompanying, Discerning and Integrating Fragility.” It contains footnote 351, which, according to some interpretations, opened the door to communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, and it was the subject of the dubia that four cardinals presented to Francis in 2016 and which were never answered. That the report speaks of fragility without restricting it to those situations, and that discernment comes to head one of its sections, are, for the moment, the only details known about its content. None of the speakers explained what the text says about access to the sacraments.
Jesuit Giacomo Costa, consultant to the General Secretariat of the Synod and responsible for methodology, maintained that “mercy and truth are not opposing demands” and proposed involving families in the formation of seminarians and priests. According to SIR, the commission approved the report, which will be delivered to the Pope together with the materials from the final session. Vatican News adds that the participants recognized it as faithful to the discussions and offered observations to strengthen its missionary dimension.
At the same press conference, Cardinal Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera, Archbishop of Guayaquil, called for “creating or instituting the ministry of marriage and the family” so that families may participate actively in parish life, and summarized in four traits what homes should be: prayer, communion, formation and mission. The Archbishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna, adjunct secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that after ten years the exhortation remains a very fresh document that deserves to be rediscovered, and recalled its call to pastoral conversion, which he described as listening before judging. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life, closed the meeting by speaking of a reception of the magisterium that advances through new understandings.
The fate of the report had already been set by the Pope before his operation. In the letter to the participants dated 13 October, Leo XIV wrote that he will read the fruits of their work and offer his reflections in due time, and Farrell and Cardinal Mario Grech clarified that he will examine the interventions, the reports of the sixteen working groups and the final synthesis once his convalescence is over. The homily that Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle read on the Pope’s behalf at the closing Mass did not mention chapter VIII and placed the emphasis on chastity. What is known about the report therefore comes from those who drafted it, and points to a re-reading of the most debated chapter of the exhortation.
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