If you told me a few years ago that a synod of bishops would make the front page of almost every newspaper, be featured prominently on almost every news website, and be the topic of heated conversation among Catholics worldwide, I would have said you were crazy.
The interest generated by the Synod of Bishops on the Family, the two-week meeting of bishops, priests and lay people that concluded two weeks ago at the Vatican surprised even veteran Vaticanologists. In recent years, synods have not garnered much enthusiasm, to put it mildly. One reason for the renewed interest this year was Pope Francis' urging participants to be as open as possible. And they were — not only to one another but also in the daily media briefings..
The document that received the most attention was the relatio, or report, issued midway through the two-week session. (The Synod of Bishops on the Family, incidentally, is a two-year event. This session was the first. In other words, that first relatio was midway through midway.) The first relatio was characterized by a warm pastoral outreach to divorced and remarried Catholics, cohabitating couples, as well as to gays and lesbians, the last of which were included under the subject line "Welcoming Homosexual Persons."