Weighing official communications about a Synod – unofficial sources are usually known quantities with greater or lesser degrees of reliability – has always been a guessing game. The past few synods on the family took guessing to a whole new level as various intermediaries in various languages with various agendas (not always Catholic) tried to put their mark on each day’s proceedings, often with little connection to what the bishops had actually discussed. Read more.

Just yesterday, Cardinal Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, questioned the “loyalty and honesty” of Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput. After the tumultuous 2015 Synod on the Family, Chaput was elected to the Council of the Synod of Bishops (basically the planning committee) with the most votes for any single candidate by the bishops of the whole world. His recent offense? Substantial criticisms of the Working Document intended to guide the month’s proceedings. Read more.

Robert Royal files another report from Dublin. The speech of Father Martin seems, for many, to have been a high point so far of the World Meeting of Families. But a question: Martin complained about discrimination against LGBT people in the Church, but by whom? Click here to read the rest of Dr. Royal’s report.

Robert Royal files his latest report on the two family meeting in Dublin, Ireland. Once again, we see an attitude among some in the Church that is dismissive of any dissent. Read more.

Robert Royal files his latest report on the Vatican Workshop on Biological Extinction. Once again, we see an attitude among some in the Church that is dismissive of any dissent. Read more.

There’s lots of talk here about how the U.N. is providing funding to the PASS and how eager some figures in the Vatican are to be accepted by these large international bodies. That seems indisputable, but all that has unfortunately diverted attention from the fact that there are legitimate questions about our relationship with nature that need to be addressed. Read more.

Why “odd”? Because scientists who think the Church is “finally” getting over a little of its hostility to science or who believe that the Church needs to get with pills and condoms are invited. And other scientists or scholars with knowledge of ecological questions who are also faithful Catholics are kept out. An odd way to run a Pontifical academy. Read more.

The sponsor decided late that this event would not be open to the public or the press, leaving in the lurch those who’ve come from far distant places. Read more.

On this final day: “The level of nervousness and uncertainty one hears from every quarter in Rome is something without precedent.” Read more.

Fifteen years ago, when I attended my first consistory, I was struck by the prayer that the new cardinals should be prepared to bear witness to Christ, even to the point of death. In those halcyon pre-9/11 days, I both appreciated the sentiment, but thought of it as a remote possibility. Sadly, that’s no longer the case. Read more.

I’ve been in Rome less than a day and my head is already swimming with rumors – and several indisputable facts – surrounding what might otherwise have been an ordinary weekend consistory to welcome new cardinals. Read more.

The first Consistory (the formal event where the pope elevates new members to the College of Cardinals) that I ever attended was in 2001. . . . At the time, we did not notice that the list . . . included . . . an obscure Argentine prelate: one Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Read more.

Robert Royal: The 2015 Synod on the Family is done; it produced several lights and not a few shadows. The Final Report, as it now stands, contains some strong spiritual reflections, drawing on the Sacred Scriptures and the traditions of the Church. It also deals realistically with many of the social and cultural and political situations of families around the world – situations that vary greatly: from the sex-saturated hedonistic culture of the West to conditions of war and persecution in the Middle East and Africa. A few paragraphs would have been better left out. Taken solely as a general view of the family, it has value. But the context in which the text was developed is another thing entirely, and will be a sore point for years to come. Read more.

Robert Royal: It’s very rarely pleasant to have to issue a self-correction, but I’m quite happy to do so today, especially since the error was to underestimate the workings of the Holy Spirit – and even of a Synod of Bishops. I’ve been a bit more optimistic than most observers here in Rome over these past weeks (as you may have noticed), and readers have chided me for everything from criminal naiveté to having drunk deep of the synodal Kool-Aid. But though I have not yet personally seen a copy of the Final Synod Report, those who have, and whom I trust, are, in two words, pretty happy. Read more.

Robert Royal: Among the various puzzling things about the past three weeks is how small a role that deep, many-hued Catholic culture has played during the Synod on the Family. It certainly did not play much of a role in the creation of the Working Document, which instead relied more on a shallow sociology and anthropology to describe problems and on a thin rationalism for answers to them. And that, to say the least, is a sad state of affairs. Read more.

Robert Royal: First the good news: of the thirteen group reports, only three favor the Kasper Proposal on CDRs as such. And we may assume that even within those groups, some bishops would vote against it. The supporters are the Germans, French A, and Italian C (the last qualified its support by invoking the theological notion of the “internal forum,” an oddity since marriage is a public act). Off the record, people inside the Synod still believe the Kasper proposal would be rejected if it were put to a direct vote, which the drafters will probably not risk for that very reason. Read more.

Robert Royal: If you expected this Synod to be an inspiring endorsement of the Catholic vision of marriage and family, you will – to say the least – be dismayed (but kudos to you for your high level of hopefulness). If you expected that, given the rebarbative document the bishops have been stuck with and are laboring to fix, the best we can hope for at this point is damage control, you would be justified in – cautiously – being of some good cheer, at least as far as the final document of this Synod is concerned. What comes after will be another matter, entirely. Read more.

Robert Royal: Chicago’s Archbishop Cupich claims, as many do at the Synod, to want to reconcile mercy with truth. But he didn’t seem himself much troubled by what many would regard as getting the proper order backwards; Communion before repentance and reconciliation. After so many example of these “hard cases,” you start to ask yourself: are there none in which the Church’s firm teaching about people in irregular circumstances led to similar conversions? Read more.

Robert Royal: The work that will be done this week has, to a great degree, already been started. . . . This work will mostly be completed in a very few days (if the schedule holds), too few in light of how, precisely, all the prior talk and editing will be translated into concrete paragraphs in the Final Report. Read more.

Robert Royal: There is no question that this is what the Holy Father wants “being synodal” to mean, and he even remarked that, “The journey of synodality is the journey that God wants from his church in the third millennium.” But that is a modern notion of synod, as a “walking together.” There is no such meaning to that word in ancient Greek and Christian usage. Read more.

Robert Royal: Perhaps the greatest irony about the current Synod is that the bishops speak frequently and passionately and rightly about the need for clear and positive language. Yet what the process has produced so far is anything but clear and, therefore, evokes negative emotions like fear and confusion among the faithful Catholic who are following the deliberations, and perhaps among the bishops themselves. Read more.

Robert Royal: With a couple of exceptions, the new Synod reports move things in a much healthier direction. The Germans are, as usual, most abstract when they are trying to be most pastoral: “The mercy of God is the fundamental truth of revelation, which does not stand in opposition to other truths.” Maybe so, but who knows what that means? Read more.

Robert Royal: Tomorrow (Wednesday) we’ll receive the second set of small language circle reports on the relatively uncontroversial middle section of the Working Document, “The Discernment of the Family Vocation.” All signs are that these will be fairly straightforward in nature, cleaning up misleading wording and filling in gaps in the text. On the grapevine, there’s a recurrent complaint that there has been no clear definition of marriage, which is no small oversight given that this is a Synod supposed to be devoted to marriage and the family. Read more.

Robert Royal: There’s also a whole wild undergrowth of propositions that the bishops are debating, now that they have moved into considering the Second Part of the Working Document, which deals with the “Discernment of the Family Vocation.” This section is a bit better than the empty sociological analysis of Part I, but it’s curious how little the “vocation” described here says about procreation and the raising of children. Read more.

Robert Royal on the end of the Synod’s first week: Are the bishops so divided that they fear even three weeks does not suffice for them to come to some conclusions together, or was the Instrumentum laboris so badly flawed that they are essentially now engaged in trying to rewrite it? Read more.

Robert Royal: Seeking to praise everything that shows some human value, as our contemporary politicians try to do, leads to absurd confusions between what normally works – tolerably well – and some of the most dysfunctional phenomena in the history of the human race. The Synod seeks to avoid this. Read more.

Robert Royal: Not all that many years ago, whenever a synod took place in Rome, almost no one noticed. If you went to the trouble, you could find perfunctory, brief accounts of a day’s speeches in one or another Roman publication, usually the Vatican’s own L’Osservatore Romano. No more. Read more.

Robert Royal: Pope Francis and the bishops have set themselves a hard task translating the moral principles of the Church – and of most of the religious and ethical traditions of the human race – into a language that elites in the developed world will not declare “offensive” to the point of being beyond the pale. Read more.

Robert Royal: Many “positive” things during the Synod’s second day of work. But talk intensified about “pastoral solutions.” Read more.

Robert Royal: There are three long weeks to go and much can happen between now and the end of the Synod. But as such things have gone recently, a good opening day for Catholicism. Read more.

A synod, as I’ve almost grown tired of repeating to friends, is not a legislature, but a consultation. In spite of all the anguish and upset prior to the opening sessions (which begin today), a synod may tell us nothing – or everything. Read more.

Pope Francis flew out of Philadelphia yesterday evening, after a grueling week that took him to three cities in Cuba and three in America, an itinerary that would have exhausted a man half his age. Read more.

Robert Royal: There was a relaxed and festive atmosphere in the City of Brotherly Love on Saturday – quite a contrast with the high drama of the pope’s major speech to the United Nations and his visit to the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan on Friday. Read more.

Robert Royal: There were many feel-good moments during the pope’s visit to New York City yesterday. He stopped in the morning to pray with representatives of other religions at the 9/11 memorial on the site of the World Trade Towers. Read more.

Robert Royal: “The pope,” a distinguished Jesuit emailed me shortly after Francis’s speech to the Joint Meeting of Congress yesterday, “seems to be having a good day.” Quite so. Read more.

Robert Royal: Our most influential newspapers, and with differing political orientations – all published stories within minutes of the pope’s first speech in the United States yesterday, noticing its highly political nature. Read more.

Robert Royal: Pope Francis concluded his pilgrimage in Cuba yesterday in Santiago – the very same city where his predecessor, Benedict XVI, slipped and fell in his room, and (as we now know) decided that he would have to resign the papacy . . . Read more.

The Holy Father will arrive in the U.S. this afternoon. EWTN (with host Raymond Arroyo and TCT’s Robert Royal and Fr. Gerald Murray) will be covering the arrival beginning at 3:30 Eastern. Be sure to watch.

Robert Royal: The secular media have been trying to draw a contrast between Pope Francis and both of his predecessors – St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI – largely on the basis of his simple ways and emphasis on mercy. Given that the secular media are not themselves, to the eye, conspicuous admirers, let alone practitioners, of poverty and meekness, you have to ask yourself: Why? The answer, I’m sorry to say, is less that they are seeking to accurately portray what is distinctive about Francis . . . than it is a backhanded way to diminish the orthodoxy of two former popes who, in their own ways, lived lives of notable simplicity and charity.Read more.

Live coverage of Pope Francis’ 1st Mass in Havana with Raymond Arroyo, Robert Royal, Fr. Gerald Murray and Fr. Roberto.

Robert Royal: In his first full day in Cuba, Pope Francis – contrary to his usual practice – began the day deliberate, restrained, and careful to stick to his prepared remarks at each formal event. Read more.

Pope Francis begins his papal visit to Cuba by attending the welcoming ceremony prepared for him. Live with Raymond Arroyo, Robert Royal, Fr Gerry Murray, Fr. Roberto Cid on EWTN.

Robert Royal: The eyes of the world are focused on Pope Francis as he begins the heart of his visit to Cuba. Read more.

Late in life, St. Augustine issued his Retractationes, which may be translated, I believe, as either “retractions” or “re-treatments” of things he had written earlier. I’m going to do one of the latter. Yesterday, I reported that the Synod bishops voted – against the clear attempt by Cardinal Baldisseri, the leader of the Synod, to suppress the reports of the ten small language groups – that they should be published. That was not accurate. Read more.

There has been a lot of talk – in dozens of languages – about the Extraordinary Synod since the Relatio post disceptationem (the interim report) was published to great controversy this past Monday. Much of what people who are not here in Rome are saying is worthy of some attention. But since we are awash in so many words, perhaps the best way to analyze Thursday’s news is via some hard numbers. Read more.

After Wednesday’s press briefing, a noted student of the Vatican, whose identity should probably not be revealed, turned and said to me, “Roberto, I don’t know what you say in English, but here we say that we just had a ton of Vaseline dumped on our heads.” Read more.

I’ve said here that Monday, the day the document officially known as the Relatio post disceptationem (Synod interim report) was issued, was the strangest day I’ve ever spent in Rome. I take it back. Yesterday, the daily Synod press briefing essentially retracted much that was said Monday and by implication parts of the document, while stopping just short of admitting as much. It was a 180-degree turn such as may never have been seen in so short a radius on Vatican soil. Ever. Throughout the ages. Read more.

I have been in Rome, by my rough count, 100 times during my adult life. Some visits had to do with secular matters of culture or politics, most with questions related to the Catholic Church. But I think I can say without the slightest doubt that yesterday was the strangest day I’ve ever passed in the Eternal City. Read more.

During one of the Masses at St. Peter’s on Sunday, a homilist ventured out into contested territory. He went through several parts of yesterday’s Gospel reading (Matt. 22:1-14) – the parable about the King who invites many to come to a great wedding feast for his son and gets weak, really insulting responses. After scores get settled and others who are strangers brought in, the King finally rejects one who showed up without a wedding garment, ordering him to be cast into the outer darkness, where there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Read more.

The central difficulty in treating issues that affect the family is that the family itself is so central to human existence that anything related to the family involves virtually everything else. To date, the Synod has invoked everything from participation in the Holy Eucharist to the question of “street children,” and everything in between. And it has been right to do so. Read more.