Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Vatican sends bishops preparatory questionnaire for 2015 family synod

byCNS
10 December 2014 - Updated on 1 April 2021
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
wedding

Marriage questions: A list of questions sent to Catholic bishops’ conferences in the lead-up to the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the family will cover a range of topics including marriage and sexuality. Photo: CNS/Jon L. Hendricks

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
wedding
Marriage questions: A list of questions sent to Catholic bishops’ conferences in the lead-up to the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the family will cover a range of topics including marriage and sexuality.
Photo: CNS/Jon L. Hendricks

TO help set the agenda for the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the family, the Vatican is sending the world’s Catholic bishops’ conferences a list of questions on a range of topics, including matters of marriage and sexuality that proved especially controversial at the 2014 family synod.

Together with the final report of the 2014 assembly, the 46 questions published by the Vatican on December 9 comprise a preparatory document, known as a “lineamenta”, for the October 4-25 synod, which will have the theme: “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and the modern world”.

Bishops’ conferences are being asked to consult with “academic institutions, organisations, lay movements and other ecclesial associations” in preparing their responses, which are due at the Vatican by April 15. The bishops’ responses will serve as the basis for the synod’s working document.

A list of 38 questions, sent to the world’s bishops in October 2013, was widely circulated on the Internet and helped generate advance interest in the 2014 synod.

The questionnaire for 2015 instructs bishops’ conferences to “avoid, in their responses, a formulation of pastoral care based simply on an application of doctrine”, in favour of what it describes as Pope Francis’ call to “pastoral activity that is characterised by a ‘culture of encounter’ and capable of recognising the Lord’s gratuitous work, even outside customary models”.

Yet the questions echo the relatively conservative tone of the 2014 synod’s final report.

Regarding the pastoral care of “persons with homosexual tendencies”, the questionnaire repeats the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s admonition against “unjust discrimination” and asks: “How can the demands of God’s will be proposed to them in their situation?”

Referring to a controversial proposal to make it easier for a divorced and civilly remarried Catholic to receive Communion, even without an annulment of his or her first, sacramental marriage, the questionnaire asks: “What is possible? What suggestions can be offered to resolve forms of undue or unnecessary impediments?”

A related question asks how the marriage annulment process can be made “more accessible, streamlined and possibly free of charge” – the mandate of a commission that Pope Francis established in August.

While acknowledging that positive elements can be present in a civil marriage or in non-marital co-habitation between a man and a woman, the questionnaire asks how such a couple can be encouraged to marry in the Church.

Related Stories

Hearts ‘fused’ together living their vocation

Ukraine war forces surrogate mothers and parents to face tragic choices

Have your voice heard for Synod of Bishops before submissions close

Consistent with Pope Francis’ emphasis on social justice, the questionnaire repeatedly solicits thoughts on the social, economic and political causes of stress on the family. But it also asks how the Church should respond to the “diffusion of cultural relativism in secularised society and to the consequent rejection, on the part of many, of the model of family formed by a man and woman united in marriage and open to life”.

In asking how to “guide the consciences of married couples” with respect to contraception, which is forbidden by Church teaching, the questionnaire emphasises the practice’s impact on birth rates, asking: “Are people aware of the grave consequences of demographic change?”

The questionnaire alludes to in-vitro fertilisation, which was not a prominent topic at the 2014 synod, asking how the Church can uphold the “human ecology of reproduction” in its dialogue with the “sciences and biomedical technologies”. It also asks how to “combat the scourge of abortion and foster an effective culture of life”.

CNS

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Spend time in silence and service before Christmas, Pope suggests

Next Post

Nation mourns a popular Test cricket hero

CNS

Related Posts

Hearts ‘fused’ together living their vocation
People

Hearts ‘fused’ together living their vocation

15 May 2022
Ukraine war forces surrogate mothers and parents to face tragic choices
Hot Topics

Ukraine war forces surrogate mothers and parents to face tragic choices

24 March 2022 - Updated on 28 March 2022
Consultations start in lead up to Synod of Bishops
Australia

Have your voice heard for Synod of Bishops before submissions close

11 March 2022
Next Post
Person lighting candle

Nation mourns a popular Test cricket hero

cyber work

Cyber ‘slums’ where online abusers prowl need pastoral care

Truckloads of hope

Popular News

  • Plans for indigenous elements, memorials to trauma, to complement Catholic liturgy

    Plans for indigenous elements, memorials to trauma, to complement Catholic liturgy

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Mass with signs of indigenous respect launch historic Plenary Council assembly

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ‘For the moment, no,’ – Pope Francis dismisses resignation rumours in wide-ranging interview

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Called to share the message of Jesus at mission school

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Future First Nations teachers honoured with Rome scholarship

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

‘For the moment, no,’ – Pope Francis dismisses resignation rumours in wide-ranging interview
Vatican

‘For the moment, no,’ – Pope Francis dismisses resignation rumours in wide-ranging interview

by Catholic News Agency
5 July 2022
0

POPE Francis has said he has no plans to resign soon and that his knee injury is...

Plans for indigenous elements, memorials to trauma, to complement Catholic liturgy

Plans for indigenous elements, memorials to trauma, to complement Catholic liturgy

5 July 2022
Spirit of Mission: A group of young people including university students, seminarians and ministry workers present at the Xavier School of Mission held June 20 to 24. The mission school hosted guest speakers and workshops to encourage people to go out and proclaim the Word. Photo: Joe Higgins

Called to share the message of Jesus at mission school

4 July 2022
Cathedral green packed with families for festival day

Cathedral green packed with families for festival day

4 July 2022
Fr Mike Schmitz’s next podcast Catechism in a Year starts New Year’s Day

Fr Mike Schmitz’s next podcast Catechism in a Year starts New Year’s Day

4 July 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping