Vatican meeting on the family ends inconclusively amid Pope Leo’s hospitalization

VATICAN CITY — A highly-anticipated meeting of bishops on the family ended at the Vatican on Wednesday, but release of the gathering’s final report was postponed on account of Pope Leo XIV’s hospitalization and surgery.

The meeting marked the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia and discussion focused on the legacy of that controversial document.

As organizers announced on Monday , since Leo XIV could not “listen” to the assembly of bishops and lay experts as he had originally planned, he said he would review the documentation and conclusions of the meeting following his convalescence. What happens next will then be up to him.

“I will read the fruits of your work and discussions, and offer my reflections in due course,” the pope said in a brief message to participants read on Oct. 14.

The Oct. 7–14 meeting — whose participants were mainly the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences — was organized in the same style as recent Synod on Synodality assemblies. Bishops and experts introduced the themes with speeches on the topic at hand, and small-group discussions alternated with plenary sessions.

While the themes for each session…