10 years after Amoris Laetitia, bishops to discuss challenges of families at the Vatican

Pope Leo XIV has convened a gathering on the family at the Vatican from Oct. 7–14, during which bishops will listen to the testimony of 11 married couples from five continents.

These families will present to more than 150 bishops the challenges they encounter in passing on the faith in increasingly secularized societies.

The meeting is being organized on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Amoris Laetitia , the postsynodal apostolic exhortation published by Pope Francis in 2016.

The document sparked intense debate, especially after the bishops of the Buenos Aires Pastoral Region interpreted it as allowing, following a process of accompanied pastoral discernment, access to the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist for some Catholics who are divorced and civilly remarried “when a person judges that he or she would fall into a further fault by harming the children of the new union.”

In 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith confirmed that this interpretation forms part of the authentic magisterium after being incorporated into the Acta Apostolicae Sedis , the Holy See’s official bulletin.

According to the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and…