As the Synod on the Family gets under way in Rome (“Ready for the Synod”, 3 October), I find that the word “change” has become toxic in some Catholic circles. To hear some people talk, you would think that the Church had never ever changed its teaching on matters of morality.Today the Church condemns slavery, yet in the Middle Ages popes owned slaves, and at least four general councils of the Church approved of slavery as a punishment or deterrent. Pius IX and Gregory XVI condemned the moral principle of “freedom of conscience” but at Vatican II the freedom of conscience was defended in eloquent terms. The Church has also changed its traditional teaching that the primary purpose of marriage is the procreation of children, now teaching that the unity of