ROME
BBC News
Caroline Wyatt
Religious affairs correspondent
This Sunday will see the start of a Synod of Bishops in Rome that could become one of the defining moments for the Papacy of Pope Francis, just six days after he landed back in Italy from his nine-day trip to Cuba and the US.
The diplomatic complexities that he navigated on that journey may come to seem relatively simple compared with the journey that awaits for representatives of the world’s 1.2bn Roman Catholics at the Synod on the Family.
It starts on 4 October and ends on 25 October, following on from last year’s Extraordinary Synod.
It has been hailed as a key test of this Papacy, and of the Pontiff’s own authority and direction for the Church.
The meeting will involve 279 bishops from more than 120 nations, as well as 17 married couples and 17 auditors, as well as other non-voting representative.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.