Bishop Barron offered the following intervention at the Vatican during the 2018 Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment.
Jesus’ encounter with two erstwhile disciples on the road to Emmaus provides a beautiful template for the Church’s work of accompaniment across the ages.
By way of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, has asked every bishop of the United States to submit a report responding to the Lineamenta and its questions for the purpose of contributing to the “Working Document” of the Ordinary Synod, to be held October 4 to 25.
Bishops are specifically encouraged to gather the thoughts and responses of a wide range of people in their dioceses in drafting their own reports.
To that end, we’d first like to make people in the diocese aware of the Lineamenta and the bishop’s invitation for them to read, reflect upon, pray about, and respond to the document in writing.
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Pope Francis has called a special session of the Synod of Bishops, which will meet from October 5 to 19 and prepare the agenda for the ordinary session of the synod that is scheduled for the fall of 2015; both sessions will focus on the family.
In my view, the synod should focus on two related themes: marriage culture is in crisis throughout the world; the answer to that crisis is the Christian view of marriage as a covenant between man and woman in a communion of love, fidelity, and fruitfulness.
To focus the conversation elsewhere is to ignore a hard fact and a great opportunity.
The collapse of marriage culture throughout the world is indisputable. More and more marriages end in divorce, even as increasing numbers of couples simply ignore marriage, cohabit, and procreate.
We are beginning the Year of Faith in the Catholic Church during October, the month traditionally dedicated to the Rosary.
Pope Benedict XVI formally entrusted the world Synod of Bishops and the Year of Faith to Mary during an October 4 visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Loreto in Italy.
It is interesting to recall that another pope visited this same Marian shrine 50 years ago. Blessed John XXIII visited Loreto to entrust the Second Vatican Council to Mary’s care in 1962.
