Pope Leo XIV has summoned the leaders of the world’s episcopal conferences to the Vatican in October to discuss marriage and the family. The invitation was issued on the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”).

Leo wrote in a message for the anniversary on March 19 that he had called the meeting “in light of the changes that continue to impact families” and “in an effort to proceed, in mutual listening, to a synodal discernment on the steps to be taken in order to proclaim the Gospel to families today, in light of ‘Amoris Laetitia’ and taking into account what is currently being done in the local Churches.”

The letter recalled how Pope Francis had called the Synod on the Family in 2014 and 2015 in order to address the “anthropological and cultural changes” that had “become increasingly pronounced over the past thirty-five years” since John Paul II issued his own landmark document on the family, “Familiaris Consortio,” in 1981.

While the message did not name any specific “anthropological and cultural changes,” the Vatican has often used these terms to refer to shifting understandings of gender and sexuality, decreasing marriage and fertility rates in many places and a larger variety of family arrangements outside of the church’s traditional norms.

In “Amoris Laetitia,” Pope Francis encouraged the church to increase its pastoral outreach to people living in “irregular” family situations, including opening the door to divorced and remarried Catholics being admitted to Communion in some cases, a decision that faced vocal resistance from cardinals and others who did not want to see the teaching changed.

Pope Leo underscored the importance of Francis’ approach on March 19, spending more than a full paragraph of his letter on “fragility.” Chapter 8 of “Amoris Laetitia” focused on “Accompanying, Discerning and Integrating Fragility” (“fragilità” in Italian, translated as “weakness” in the English translation of “Amoris Laetitia” but as “fragility” in the English translation of Pope Leo’s letter). The chapter focused on pastoral care of those in “irregular” situations, stating, “it can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace.”

Pope Leo wrote that, as he had said previously, “fragility is ‘part of the marvel of creation.’” 

He continued, “To serve the mission of proclaiming the Gospel of the family to younger generations, we must learn to evoke the beauty of the vocation to marriage precisely in the recognition of fragility, so as to reawaken ‘trust in God’s grace’ (AL, No. 36) and the Christian desire for holiness. We must also support families, especially those suffering from the many forms of poverty and violence present in contemporary society.”

Leo said that the “rapid changes” that had sparked “Amoris Laetitia” made it “necessary, even more than ten years ago, to give particular pastoral attention to families.” Hence the call for the bishops’ conferences’ heads to meet on the subject.

Collegiality

While details of the October meeting are scant, there has been only one such meeting of the heads of the world’s episcopal conferences in the past. In 2019, Pope Francis called them to the Vatican for a summit on the protection of minors. That summit also included the heads of the world’s religious orders. Over four days, attendees listened to testimonies from abuse survivors from six continents as well as impassioned speeches from Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the reporter Valentina Alazraki and a religious sister, Veronica Openibo, S.H.C.J. 

The meeting produced few immediate reforms but focused on helping bishops understand that clerical sexual abuse was a problem that merited their attention. It was followed by gradual reforms including “Vos Estis Lux Mundi,” which established new norms for accountability for abuse and cover-up both by bishops and in religious orders.

The 2019 meeting was seen as unusual at the time because it appeared to give a higher level of official recognition to episcopal conferences than the Vatican had previously given them. While Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI acknowledged that episcopal conferences were useful on a practical level, they stressed that conferences were not part of the church’s official hierarchy and thus did not have “doctrinal authority.” (See Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Cardinal Walter Kasper on this subject in America in 2001.)

Pope Francis had written in 2013 that the question was not sufficiently answered, and synod delegates made proposals at the Synod on Synodality in 2021-24 to recognize the conferences as “ecclesial subjects endowed with doctrinal authority,” sparking renewed debate. Some will likely wonder whether Pope Leo’s convening of the episcopal conferences’ heads provides a clue about whether or how he might settle the debate. There are approximately 115 bishops’ conferences around the world.

In any case, the calling of a meeting of bishops from around the world is the second major push toward collegiality—the Vatican II ideal of bishops working in communion with one another—this year. The first was a meeting of the world’s cardinals in January, something Leo said would be repeated in June and then annually. The cardinals had expressed at 2025’s pre-conclave meetings that they hoped to be consulted more frequently by the pope, and Leo called the cardinals back into their meeting hall shortly after his election to listen to them for two hours.

It is notable that the January meeting of cardinals, called a consistory, voted to focus on two of Pope Francis’ documents: “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), which laid out the goals of his pontificate, and “Praedicate Evangelium” (“Preach the Gospel”), his document reforming the Roman Curia. Leo has now called another global meeting of bishops focusing on yet another Francis document, “Amoris Laetitia,” perhaps indicating his desire to continue Francis’ teaching legacy.

Synodality

A key question regarding this meeting is to what degree laypeople will be involved. In 2019, although the only lay participants were non-ordained members of religious orders and Vatican Curia officials, many of the testimonies the bishops listened to were given by laypeople. A similar structure could be followed for this meeting. But no matter the format, it will be interesting to see what speakers are chosen. Will they primarily be married parents? Will any reflect “irregular situations” such as cohabiting couples or people in same-sex relationships?

The meeting also comes amid a greater shift toward synodality in the church, with global assemblies under Francis already involving an increasing presence of laypeople. Before and during the Synod on the Family, questionnaires were sent out to laypeople around the world to ask about their experiences, which were meant to inform the bishops’ conversations at the synod. 

At the Synod on Synodality, lay people were invited as full, voting members for the first time, raising questions about whether the synod could still be considered a synod “of bishops” and whether synods should be reimagined as “ecclesial assemblies” that include laypeople, followed by bishops-only meetings to discern the results of the assemblies. (Currently, an ecclesial assembly on synodality is planned for 2028, with no plans thus far for a bishops-only meeting to follow.)

Given the listening sessions that already occurred on family issues more than a decade ago during the Synod on the Family, on which “Amoris Laetitia” is based, it is possible the involvement of laypeople will be limited. However, Pope Leo’s message announcing the meeting acknowledged that “there are, in fact, places and circumstances in which the church ‘can become the salt of the earth’ only through the lay faithful and, in particular, through families.”

“For this reason,” the pope wrote, “the Church’s commitment in this area must be renewed and deepened, so that those whom the Lord calls to marriage and family life can, in Christ, fully live out their conjugal love, and that young people may feel attracted, within the Church, to the beauty of the vocation to marriage.”