by Joshua J. McElwee
The Vatican has released the English language translation of the final document from October’s much analyzed worldwide meeting of Catholic bishops on family life, making the translation available at the Synod of Bishops’ website.
The final document was the fruit of three weeks of intense and sometimes heated deliberations among the global prelates, who were called to Rome by Pope Francis to consider a range of issues, including the church’s practice towards those who are divorced and remarried. It was only first available in Italian.
The bishops voted on the document in their last deliberative session of the Oct. 4-25 gathering, giving each paragraph a simple yes or no vote. Each of the 94 paragraphs of the document were adopted by the assembly with the required two-thirds vote, 177 bishops of the 265 present for the voting.
The three paragraphs dealing with issues relating to divorced and remarried Catholics were closest in the voting, receiving, respectively, 187, 178, and 190 votes.
The full English translation is available here.
[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]