10 years after Amoris Laetitia, bishops to discuss challenges of families at the Vatican
Pope Leo XIV has convened a weeklong Vatican gathering, Oct. 7–14, to discuss challenges facing families and the transmission of faith. Eleven married couples from five continents will share their experiences with more than 150 bishops and other participants from across the Church. The gathering marks the 10th anniversary of *Amoris Laetitia*, but organizers say it is intended to deepen understanding of family life and pastoral realities, not evaluate the document. Discussions will consider how families pass on faith and help build the Church amid varied cultural contexts and declining religious marriage rates in some countries.
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Pope Leo XIV has convened bishops, families and experts at the Vatican from Oct. 7–14 to discuss how the Church can accompany families and help transmit the faith, ten years after Pope Francis published Amoris Laetitia. Organizers say the gathering will listen to experiences from different regions rather than evaluate the document, impose uniform pastoral guidance or seek to erase disagreements. 3
The gathering, titled “Ten Years After Amoris Laetitia: Proclaiming the Gospel With Families Today,” will hear testimony from 11 married couples representing five continents. More than 150 bishops are expected, and OSV News reported an estimated total of about 200 participants, including families and theological experts. 3
The participants include leaders of the 15 Eastern Catholic Churches sui iuris, presidents or delegates from the world’s 115 bishops’ conferences, representatives of bishops from territories without a conference, and 22 people selected by the pope. Another 67 attendees include officials from Vatican bodies, experts and facilitators.
Pope Leo is expected to attend the opening and closing, and organizers said he intends to take part in other sessions as his schedule allows. The meeting will use a method centered on listening and discernment, with family testimonies, bishops’ contributions and expert reflections forming the daily program. 3
Organizers framed the central questions as how faith is transmitted in families today and how families contribute to the life and mission of the Church. They said the meeting will consider varied pastoral realities across cultures, rather than seek mechanical or identical application of Church texts everywhere. 3
Five themes will guide the discussions: the realities and challenges facing families today; young people’s discovery of marriage as a vocation; the early years of married life; accompanying couples and families through difficulties; and the role of Christian families in the Church’s mission. 3
Among the pastoral concerns identified by Gabriella Gambino, undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, are secularization and declining rates of sacramental marriage. She cited a 45% drop in religious marriages in Poland over the previous five years and a decline in Australia from 88% in 1970 to 16% in 2024. 3
Vatican officials emphasized that the meeting is neither an evaluation of Amoris Laetitia nor a new synod. Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa said the focus is what the Church has learned from trying to live the document, and that differences need not be eliminated to achieve consensus. 3
Costa described the gathering as an exchange among local churches, not a process for Rome to issue a uniform directive. Participants will discuss how the document has been received and lived in different settings, including places where bishops and communities have responded differently. 3
No outcome has been predetermined. Organizers plan to prepare a final summary, reviewed for fidelity to the discussions, but said there will be no concluding document; bishops’ conference presidents will then be invited to develop local initiatives and pastoral approaches.
Published in 2016 after two synods on the family, Amoris Laetitia prompted debate, particularly over its treatment of Catholics who are divorced and civilly remarried. The Buenos Aires bishops interpreted it as allowing some such Catholics, after pastoral discernment, access to reconciliation and the Eucharist; in 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith affirmed that interpretation as part of the authentic magisterium. 3*
Family life mediates faith transmission and ecclesial mission
Family life is not merely a private setting in which children learn religious ideas. In Catholic teaching, the Christian family is a “domestic Church”: a community that receives faith from the Church and, through its ordinary life, shares in the Church’s mission. Parents have a distinctive role in handing on the faith, complementary to the ministry of pastors; when this family witness is absent, an irreplaceable part of evangelization is missing.
Faith is transmitted through both words and lived relationships. Family prayer, participation in the sacraments, and parents’ example help make Christ’s presence a source of spiritual nourishment and unity. Parents teach their children, but the transmission is reciprocal: children’s faith and witness can also deepen their parents’ own faith.
This formation within the home leads outward. A family participates in the Church’s mission not only by explaining the Gospel, but by living love, fidelity, service, solidarity with those in need, and concern for the common good. Its witness can encourage other families and contribute to the evangelization of its neighborhood and society.
Thus family life mediates faith transmission and ecclesial mission in a twofold way: the Church forms and strengthens families through the Word and sacraments, while families pass on faith and make Christ’s love visible in daily life. The home is not a substitute for the wider Church; it is one of the ways the Church’s life and mission take root and bear fruit.