The triptych "Church Synod Family" is the title of the pocket book published in recent days by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana and authored by the theologian Maurizio Gronchi, consultant and expert of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops and of the two Synod Assemblies of 2014 and 2015.
Four chapters, covering 118 pages, deal with "The Evolution of the Synod of Bishops" (chap. I), which has existed for 50 years; the III Extraordinary Assembly of the Synod on "The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization" (chap. II); "The Period between the Synods" (chap. III); and the XIV Ordinary Assembly of the Synod on "The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and in the contemporary world."
This little book, which can be read in a single sitting, has a four-page preface written by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops. "The synod experience—we read in the preface—is masterfully described in these pages that, taking the cue from a survey on the distant and recent history of the ecclesial collegiality, offer us a sound and successful reading of the event and presentation of two intense and fruitful years" (p.6).
The work was recently presented in Rome by Prof. Manuel Arroba Conde, president of the Institute utriusque iuris of the Pontifical Lateran University, and Prof. François-Xavier Dumortier, Rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University. Both participated as experts in the two synod assemblies dedicated to the family.
