UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Thomas Reese | Jun. 14, 2014 NCR Today
To help prepare for the October Synod of Bishops on the family, a working paper written by the secretariat of the Synod of Bishops will be released before the end of the month, according to Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington. Wuerl, a member of the synodal council that approved the paper for distribution, said it will be released as soon as the Italian version is translated into other languages.
The working paper, technically called the instrumentum laboris, is a distillation of the material sent to Rome from bishops, bishops’ conferences, and others in response to the questionnaire sent out by the secretariat in October 2013. It is supposed to stimulate further discussion of the synod topic rather than attempt to be the first draft of any conclusions coming out of the synod.
Thirty-four years ago this October, more than 200 bishops from some 90 countries met in Rome for the first synod on the family. It was the first synod of the papacy of John Paul II and ultimately resulted in Familiaris Consortio, his 1981 apostolic exhortation on the family.
The 1980 synod on the family also had an instrumentum laboris and, not surprisingly, it focused on some of the same issues that are alive today.
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