Several groups said the presentation of the family in the first part of the synod's working document is too negative, too bleak, because it “mainly highlights problems.”

This morning Pope Francis urgently appealed to the International Community “to broaden its horizons beyond the immediate interests and use the instruments of international law and diplomacy to resolve the ongoing conflicts.”

The 318 participants attending the synod of bishops on the family have raised or discussed a wide range of topics during the first four days of this gathering nbsp High among them are the terrible destructive impact that war armed conflict poverty unemployment persecution violence against wo

The synod of bishops on the family is now gathering steam.

‘A church with closed doors betrays herself and her mission, and, instead of being a bridge, becomes a roadblock,” Pope Francis said in his homily during a concelebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 4, as he opened the meeting of the Synod of Bishops on the family.Francis i

Pope Francis asked the Synod Fathers to engage in “a profound discernment to seek to understand what the Lord wants of his Church.”

Pope Francis reassured the synod fathers that the Catholic doctrine on marriage had not been put into question at the Extraordinary Synod in 2014 and so retains its full validity.

The Hungarian cardinal, Peter Erdo, is playing a crucial role in the synod on the family, and now a somewhat controversial one.

Francis says synod is not a 'talk shop' or conference but 'a protected space where the church experiences that action of the Holy Spirit.'

Pope Francis analyzed the real and often dramatic situation of people in today’s globalized world, marked by “a growing loneliness and vulnerability,” the image of which is “the family.”