The Vatican’s Secretary of State expects an apostolic exhortation on the family from Pope Francis reasonably soon.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin told Italian news agency ANSA that the Pope will promulgate a document based in the conclusions of the synod of bishops’ recent meeting.
Regarding the timing of any apostolic exhortation, he said: “This I do not know, but I don’t think it will be long.”
“After all, it is best to strike while the iron is hot,” Cardinal Parolin said.
When asked whether the Pope is expected to publish a document following the conclusion of the synod meetings on the family, Cardinal Parolin said: “yes, and it will take the form of an apostolic exhortation, following synod tradition”.
“As the end of the concluding report states,” the cardinal added, “the synod fathers offer material to the Pope, requesting a document if he considers this appropriate.”
Meanwhile, Belgian Bishop Johan Bonny told Vatican Insider of a conservative faction’s tactics over the synod final document’s paragraph on discernment for remarried divorcees.
“Those who were intent on not yielding an inch of ground on this matter, were convinced they were going to ‘win’,” Bishop Bonny said.
“They said to themselves: we won’t make any initial objections to what is stated in that section and then when it’s time to vote, we will vote against it.
“They wanted to send out a sign: we don’t wish to discuss this any longer, not even remotely.
“But they miscalculated things,” Bishop Bonny said.
Each paragraph in the final document could have no more than 80 votes against at this synod, in order to reach the traditional two thirds vote required for inclusion.
“At the start there were definitely more than 80 of them,” Bishop Bonny said.
“That means that in the end, some of them must have said: that’s enough, let’s move on towards the shared position on pastoral care. And this change came about gradually during the synod.”
During the synod, Bishop Charles Drennan of New Zealand told The Tablet that the Pope is not bound by the need for the traditional two thirds majority vote.
Sources