VATICAN CITY, July 18 (UPI) — An international synod of Roman Catholic bishops in 1977 may discuss the explosive issues of youth and the family in the modern world, Vatican sources said today.
They said the two subjects were on a list of five possible agenda items the synod’s permanent secretariat circulated to national hierarchies in April, seeking their recommendations.
At least one national bishop’s conference already has replied it favors a debate on youth, the sources said.
Recommendations are not binding on Pope Paul VI, who sets agendas of synods as he sees fit and can veto debate on any subject he does not like.
Synods — initiated by Pope Paul in 1967 and now held at three-year intervals — are gatherings of bishops to advise the pontiff on religious subjects.
Participants include some prelates elected directly by the world’s more than 3,000 Catholic bishops and others appointed by the Pope. 1977.
Vatican sources said the Pope might ban debate of the family issue — already discarded in 1974 — because it might bring to light dissent on such key points as divorce, abortion, and birth control. The Pope has strongly reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s traditional ban on all three.
Other subjects the synod secretariat suggested as possible agenda items included «the faith and the teaching authority», catechistical work and «the objective principles of morality.»
The first would deal with the Pope’s authority to decree Catholic doctrine, the second with ways to teach that doctrine to modern man and the third would be a search for a set of moral rules acceptable to believers and non-believers alike.
