Vatican summit to assess 10 years of ‘trying to live’ Amoris Laetitia

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican will mark ten years of Amoris Laetitia by examining how the controversial document has been “lived,” with officials stressing “experience” over a fresh evaluation of the text itself.

On October 2, Vatican officials – including the Undersecretary of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life Gabriella Gambino; canon law professor Orietta Rachele Grazioli; and Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa – held a press conference to present Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming global summit entitled “Ten years after Amoris Laetitia: announcing the Gospel with families today.”

“A Document is not the end point: it must become part of the life of the Church and allow itself to be tested by experience,” Costa said. “Ten years later, the question is not what Amoris laetitia says, but what we have learned by trying to live it.”

“The objective indicated by Pope Leo XIV is to proceed, through mutual listening, to a synodal discernment on the steps to take today to proclaim the Gospel with families,” the priest stated.

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Scheduled to take place in the Paul VI Hall from October 7 to 14, the gathering brings together roughly 248 bishops – heads of Eastern Catholic Churches and presidents of bishops’ conferences worldwide – along with select families and lay experts. The event is designed to examine how Pope Francis’ 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia has been implemented over the past decade and to discern new localized pastoral approaches through a synodal-style process of “conversations in the Spirit,” small-group exchanges, and shared prayer.

During the Friday press conference, Gambino highlighted the global decline in religious marriages and insisted that families must become active co-agents of evangelization rather than passive recipients. Grazioli outlined the summit’s five thematic modules, stressing that bishops and experts will focus on listening to the diversity of local backgrounds represented at the summit and “pastoral creativity” rather than examining the text itself. Finally, Costa explained that the meeting will function as an “evaluation assembly,” using conversations to assess the “experience” of the past decade without seeking to “erase differences to reach a consensus.”

However, during the press conference, several elements emerged which appear difficult to reconcile with traditional Catholic teaching. First, the premise of the summit explicitly prioritizes experience over objective magisterial teaching. Costa stated that the goal is not to evaluate or judge the text of Amoris Laetitia, but to “learn from the experience gained since its publication.”

Furthermore, the presented methodology opens a pathway for dissenting views and regional differences in the application of the text, with Costa stating that the meeting will not seek to “erase differences to reach a consensus” and that “a divergence understood better can also be a fruit of listening.” Also, by emphasizing the need to adapt pastoral care to local cultural contexts and allowing bishops to “experiment” with innovations, the framework threatens the universal uniformity of Church discipline regarding marriage, Holy Communion, and wider moral theology.

The summit will gather the presidents of episcopal conferences and Eastern Church leaders accompanied by families (including five anonymous couples delivering personal testimonies) and international experts in theology, sociology, and canon law.

The core deliberations are organized around five specific modules: (1) “Families today: reality, beauty and challenges;” (2) “Young people and the discovery of the vocation to marriage;” (3) “Married life. The early years of marriage: a decisive time;” (4) “In the difficulties of life: accompanying and supporting;” and (5) “Christian families, agents of the Church’s mission.”

The working groups will utilize the “conversations in the Spirit” technique employed at the Synod on Synodality meetings, a mode consisting in three rounds (sharing personal experience, listening and resonating with others, and elaborating shared insights) punctuated by silence and prayer.

Costa highlighted that the summit will not issue a new final legislative decree or magisterial document but will produce a “synthesis report” verified by a committee, discussed by the assembly, presented to Pope Leo XIV, and published to encourage local pastoral initiatives. The report will not replace or update the core teachings of Amoris Laetitia.

Yet some of the most revealing moments of the press conference came during the question-and-answer session, where journalists pressed Vatican officials on several sensitive issues.

Asked whether they expected questions on the nature of marriage and related doctrines that surrounded Amoris Laetitia a decade ago to resurface, and how potential disputes would be managed, officials declined to offer specific predictions. Gambino and Grazioli stated that they could not know in advance which subjects bishops would raise or what themes might emerge from the discussions.

However, the president of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Heiner Wilmer, already publicly announced that he intends to bring to Rome testimonies from homosexual couples and divorced and “remarried” persons.

Probing the panel on the families invited to participate, a journalist asked whether they would reflect different family situations as found today, including large families and single-parent households. However, the response focused largely on geographical representation, with officials explaining that families had been selected to correspond to the five thematic modules of the meeting, without providing further details about the criteria used.

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Another journalist raised the question of the gap between different episcopal conferences, noting that several African bishops expressed reservations about aspects of Amoris Laetitia and asking how such differences would be addressed. Vatican officials did not provide a substantive answer.

Questions were also asked about the 22 participants personally invited by Pope Leo XIV and whether these were individuals known to the Pope before his election. Appearing to avoid answering directly, Costa pointed to disparities in the size of local Churches around the world. He noted that it would be unusual for a country with a vastly larger Catholic population, such as Brazil, not to have greater representation.

For that reason, he speculated that the Pope may have invited additional participants in order to achieve a more balanced representation. Beyond that, however, Costa said he was unaware of the criteria used by the Pope in selecting the invitees.