The Vatican announced that Pope Francis will release the much-anticipated document on Catholic family life on April 8.
The document, the result of two back-to-back synods of Catholic bishops in 2014 and 2015, will be titled “Amoris laetitia, On Love in the Family.”
Cardinals Lorenzo Baldisseri and Christoph Schonborn, alongside Italian lay people Francesco and Giuseppina Miano, will present the document in a press conference.
Several reports said the document is rather lengthy, perhaps even as long as 200 pages. The pope reportedly signed the document on March 19, feast day of St. Joseph and the day marking the inauguration of his papal ministry in 2013.
“I expect the papal document to be a typical Bergoglio combination of challenge and encouragement,” said Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia.
Coleridge, who attended the 2015 synod as one of two prelates elected by the Australian bishops, said he hoped Francis could both encourage people who are married or contemplating marriage while “unmasking some of the lies and half-truths that have gathered around marriage and the family in more recent times.”
Leading Vatican observer John Allen Jr. wrote that the document “is certain to trigger” debates in the Church.
Speaking to reporters flying with him from Mexico to Rome in late February, Pope Francis said the document “will summarize all that the synod said,” including about broken families, the importance of serious marriage preparation programs, raising and educating children, and “integrating” divorced and civilly remarried Catholics into active parish life even if they cannot receive Communion.
Sources