The Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communications, Mr Paolo Ruffini, began today’s Synod press briefing with a report outlining numerous interventions made in the Synod’s general assembly hall. The bishops have begun working on the second part of the Instrumentum Laboris, analysing the context in which young people find themselves today.

Mr Ruffini also clarified the fact that the Chinese bishops would not be staying for the entire Synod…

Despite the varying situations and contexts of young people across the world their basic aspirations are the same. They want to be taken seriously, listened to, allowed to contribute and they want us to trust them, Cardinal Oswald Gracias from India said.

Listening

“Listening is key in the Synod process,” said French Sister Nathalie Becquart…

Pope Francis on Saturday expressed confidence that young people will provide the missionary dynamism for the Church’s evangelizing thrust in today’s fast changing, globalized and greatly interconnected world, saying they are not just the future but also the Church’s present.

His remarks came in a prepared address to a festive rally in the Vatican that brought together some 7,000 young people from various parts of the world and the Synod Fathers who are participating in the October 3-28 Synod of Bishops on the theme , “Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment.”

The Church goes out with the young

“The Church, therefore, does not go out ‘to’ the new generations, but goes out ‘with’ the new generations, and the Synod is the fruit of a work in which you have been and are protagonists,” the Pope said…