Nothing troubles Catholic parents more than the wholesale flight of young people from the weekly practice of the faith. Yet these are also their years of adventure and idealism, when authenticity is at a premium and the world is a mess. Pope Francis has decided that the young are to be his next big project: to understand where the generation dubbed the “millennials” are coming from, and to harness their hopes and ideals for the common good, so that they will join him in undoing that mess. He has commissioned a consultation prior to the next Synod of Bishops in Rome, with an emphasis on listening and discerning rather than teaching and pontificating. This is the approach he took prior to the two synods on family life: “consulting the faithful in matters of doctrine” in Newman’s famous phrase. There hasn’t been enough of that in recent years.

It is likely that synod members will find themselves with a different dilemma from the one they faced last time – how to hold on to basic principles while recognising that individual family circumstances do not always comply with the Catholic rulebook. Young Catholics are more likely to ask: Why have a rulebook at all? Or: Why should the Catholic Church, with its uneven record as a defender of human rights over the centuries, be trusted as the source of such rules?