‘Mission impossible’ was how Fr Federico Lombardi on Thursday described the task of trying to sum up the dozens of daily interventions by participants in the Synod of Bishops on the Family, currently coming to the close of its second week in the Vatican’s Synod Hall.

Friday will mark the final day of presentations on part three of the Synod’s working document, before participants move back into their small groups to decide on final changes they’d like to see reflected in a concluding document on marriage and family life…

14 Oct. At the daily press briefing for the Synod on the Family an African Cardinal said that polygamy was much more of a problem in Africa than divorce and remarriage. Spokesman for Holy See, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, was joined by Cardinals Vincent Nichols of Britain, Phillippe Ouedraogo from Burkina Faso and Rubén Salazar Gomez from Colombia.

Cardinal Ouedraogo told the media that in Europe divorce and remarriage was a real concern for Synod delegates but, in Africa, polygamy was a much more pressing problem…

Pope Francis on Wednesday asked forgiveness for scandals that have taken place in the Church and here in the Vatican. He also mentioned recent corruption scandals that have rocked the city of Rome and its municipal administration. He was speaking to the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square before beginning his weekly catechesis. Commenting on today’s reading in which Jesus says “Woe to the world because of scandals…

Oct 13. On Tuesday the Synod delegates spent the whole day working in “circuli minores,” director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, told the daily press briefing. He also read statements from Cardinals George Pell and Wilfrid Napier.

He was joined at the briefing by three Synod Assembly delegates: Abbot Jeremias Schröder, General of the Benedictines of St…

Before the recitation of the Marian Prayer, Pope Francis focused his attention on Sunday’s Gospel reading from Mark, which recounts Jesus’ encounter with the “rich young man”.

The Holy Father explained that this text was built around the “three gazes of Jesus.”

The first is his “intense gaze full of tenderness and affection,” when the young man expressed that “for him observance of the precepts is not enough, since it does not meet with his desire for wholeness…