A working document for the final gathering later this year of Pope Francis’s controversial Synod of Bishops on synodality makes no clear mention of female ordination, priestly celibacy or the married priesthood. It also makes no overt references to the LGBTQ+ community.
Presented 9 July in a news conference, the official working document – called an Instrumentum Laboris – for the second Rome-based session of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality later this year, marks an official end to a three-year process. And what may strike some observers as most notable is what the document doesn't say, as opposed to what it does.
