Baldisseri names priorities for October synod

The top Vatican official for the synod on the family has tried to seize the ground for the reformers in the run-up to the October Ordinary Synod.

Italian Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the synod office, told a congress of family-focused Catholic groups meeting in Rome as part of the build-up to the synod that bishops “should listen to couples in irregular situations”.

Last year’s Extraordinary Synod ended in disagreement between reform-minded and other bishops over topics such as acceptance of gay couples and Communion for the divorced and remarried.

Openings to gays that appeared mid-synod in a working document about “accepting and valuing” their choices had disappeared by the final document.

This week’s  meeting came as Pope Francis told participants in a three-day conference marking the tenth anniversary of Dignitas Connubii – the instruction for tribunals handling cases of the nullity of marriage – that the instruction could help in expediting cases, and shortening proceedings, as well as providing for a “sure process because it indicates and explains with clarity the goal of the process itself, namely moral certainty”.

One suggested way of addressing the issue of access to Communion for divorced and remarried parishioners is to make annulments more straightforward.

Cardinal Baldisseri said a working document or instrumentum laboris for the next synod, addressing “the most sensitive issues” of homosexuality, couples living together outside of marriage, and Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, will be ready in June.