On October 4-24 bishops from all over the world gathered in Vatican City with the Holy Father to discuss the topic of family structures and roles. This years theme for the Synod of Bishops was “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and in the contemporary world.”

The Synod of Bishops holds a council each year on questions that face the church.The Synod was divided up into three parts this year: “Listening to the challenges of family”, “Discernment of the family vocation”, and “The mission of the family today.” Each of those different parts were discussed and reflected on by the bishops.

Pope Francis stressed the importance of family and marriage. We were founded by one family and one marriage. The Synod helped strengthen families and restore marriages. Pope Francis shared, “The family is important, and it is necessary for the survival of humanity. Without the family, the cultural survival of the human race would be at risk. The family, whether we like it or not, is the foundation.”

The Synod on family was not about fixing the problems. It was about recognizing the problems in families and slowly confronting them. It was also about trying to see reality through God’s eyes. Some of the problems were on divorce, polygamy, same sex marriage and single parents.
On October 24 this year’s Synod on family finally came to a conclusion. A detailed document was presented to the Holy Father with 94 points on the needs of today’s Catholic families. Some of main points were on migration, poverty, single parents, polygamy, and whether remarried Catholics can receive communion. The Bishops went through, paragraph by paragraph voting. The document passed with 1 more vote more than the two thirds needed.