FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Filial Appeal Association Releases New Book on Synod Written by Three Bishops
ROME, Italy (May 20, 2015) – A booklet titled Preferential Option for the Family – One Hundred Questions and One Hundred Answers Regarding the Synod (Filial Appeal Publishers) was launched on May 19 at the Hotel Columbus on Via della Conciliazione in Rome. The booklet was authored by Most Rev. Aldo di Cillo Pagotto, SSS (Archbishop of Paraiba, Brazil), Most Rev. Robert F. Vasa (Bishop of Santa Rosa, California) and Most Rev. Athanasius Schneider (Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan).
The work opens with a preface by Jorge Arturo Cardinal Medina Estevez, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship, and has received letters of praise from Most Rev. Luigi Negri (Archbishop of Ferrara-Comacchio, Italy), Most Rev. Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz (Archbishop Minsk-Mogilev, Belarus) and Most Rev. Patricio Bonilla Bonilla, OFM (Apostolic Delegate of San Cristobal Galapagos, Ecuador).
Prof. Tommaso Scandroglio, spokesman for this initiative launched by the Filial Appeal Association, stated: “this volume is an original handbook on the family, theme of the next Synod. It is divided into one hundred questions and answers. The questions reproduce the most common objections on issues such as sexuality, indissolubility of the marriage bond, divorce, homosexuality, declaration of nullity of canonical marriages, communion for the divorced and remarried, mercy, pastoral policy, and many others. The answers, in contrast, recall perennial Church doctrine on these matters.”
According to Prof. Scandroglio, the publication has a twofold purpose: On the one hand to call to mind the requirement of consistency with the dictates of the Catholic Church regarding natural morality and faith. On the other, it seeks to offer proofs that, on many conceptual issues on the topic of the family, Church doctrine has already been consolidated and has successfully answered, for a long time now, some ethical and theological objections which many media outlets keep coming up with. The challenge is therefore eminently pastoral in character, Scandroglio said, adding that “the handbook is designed primarily for bishops, priests, religious, catechists, and the faithful involved in the life of the Church. But it will also appeal to all those lay people who will find in this handy publication some rational reasons to defend the family from attacks unleashed ever more often by a nihilist and relativist culture.”
Also speaking at the press conference introducing the book, Preferential Option for the Family, was the well-known English pro-life leader John Smeaton, in his capacity as co-founder of the Voice of the Family coalition, a dynamic think tank that works in support of the natural and traditional family. Voice of the Family has been producing high quality studies on the issue, such as a recent analysis of the 2014 Relatio Synody. The analysis which emphasizes omitted issues and ambiguously treated aspects during the Synod, leaving the faithful in a state of confusion. According to Voice of the Family, these issues should be urgently clarified in the 2015 Synod.
The book’s purpose is consistent with the Filial Petition to Pope Francis (supplicafiliale.org), which has exceeded 250,000 signatures, including those of four cardinals, twenty-three bishops and archbishops, and numerous academic and public figures from many nations.
The booklet can be requested at [email protected]
The filial petition to Pope Francis can be signed here.
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