Fifteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops

The theme was chosen by Pope Francis after consulting the members of the Synod Council chosen by the previous Ordinary Assembly, regional and national bishops' conferences, the Union of Superiors Generals, the leaders of the Eastern Catholic Churches, and others. The theme, according to Francis, would allow for consideration of the decline in priestly vocations along with the broader question of discerning one's vocation. In January 2017, Pope Francis released a letter that invited "Young People" to contribute to the planning of the synod. He wrote: In June 2017, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, announced the launch of a website to present the synod's planning document accompanied by a questionnaire in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Italian to gather suggestions and feedback on it. He said he hoped to organize a gathering of youth in advance of the synod. Its 53 questions, mostly multiple choice, were organized into seven sections and targeted at learning about local experiences specific to the younger generation. The planning document said that its working definition of young people meant ages 16 to 29 and that it was prioritizing communication with them: "In pastoral activity, young people are not objects but agents. Oftentimes, society sees them as nonessential or inconvenient. The Church cannot reflect such an attitude, because all young people, without exception, have the right to be guided in life's journey." The synod planning document posed another set of questions to bishops to assess how they minister to young people and included some questions targeted to specific geographic regions and asked, for example, about responding to "extreme violence" or working in a society that is "greatly secularized." In early July, he reported that the questionnaire had received more than 60,000 responses and the website had generated 173,000 "contacts." He said he hoped to reach "all young people, not only active Catholic young people." In September, he hosted a seminar with about 20 teenagers and young adults to hear their ideas on the planned Synod. The participants were uninhibited in providing advice about topics and struggling to understand what the synod proposed to accomplish. ==Participants==

Baldisseri announced in January 2017 that the synod auditors, attendees without voting rights, would be young men and women carefully selected to represent the entire world and would participate as key advisers throughout the process to the Pope Francis and the Synod of Bishops. Pope Francis appointed 29 prelates to supplement those elected by national and regional episcopal conferences. ==Working document==

The working document (instrumentum laboris) that guided the bishops' discussions was released in June 2018. A second election on 9 October, again by region, chose members of the committee responsible for drafting the synod's concluding document. This election, again by region, produced a less diverse group more attuned to Francis in style and views, though when Francis made three additional appointments as the rules provided he avoided figures who are controversial for their espousal of less traditional views and instead used his selections to provide other kinds of diversity: the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a Cuban priest, and a junior Vatican official. ==Final document==

Apostolic exhortation Drafting Cardinal Oswald Gracias, a member of the drafting committee for the final synod document, told news outlet Crux that there had been some "resistance" among the synod fathers to the prominent inclusion of the themes of "synodality" and "discernment" in the draft final document because these themes "really were not very much prominent in the discussions." "It wasn't very prominent in the minds of the synod fathers, but it's come out very strongly," Gracias stated. Gracias speculated that Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri and the two special secretaries for the synod, Father Giacomo Costa and Father Rossano Sala, were responsible for the insertion of the themes. Christus Vivit Drawing on the synod's document on discussions, Pope Francis authored an apostolic exhortation, Christus Vivit (Christ is living), which he signed on 25 March 2019. The text of the document was published on 2 April 2019, the anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II, who was "the first Pope to address a letter to young people in 1985 and he was the Pope who began the World Youth Days". The Vatican also provided a summary of Christus Vivit by Andrea Tornielli. Francis acknowledged the church's history of promoting male domination and clerical protection of members of the Church who committed the abuse of power, the abuse of conscience, sexual and financial abuse against women and children. He wrote that the church had to repair its reputation with young people or risk becoming "a museum". He also acknowledged abuses committed "by some bishops, priests, religious and laypersons" and asked young people to hold priests accountable by reminding them of their vows and vocations. The Apostolic Exhortation included several references to the work of the Auditors who provided key advice and played a pivotal role during this process, including a quote from the Samoan auditor Joseph Sapati Moeono-Kolio which Pope Francis used to summarise Chapter Six:During the Synod, one of the young auditors from the Samoan Islands spoke of the Church as a canoe, in which the elderly help to keep on course by judging the position of the stars, while the young keep rowing, imagining what waits for them ahead. Let us steer clear of young people who think that adults represent a meaningless past, and those adults who always think they know how young people should act. Instead, let us all climb aboard the same canoe and together seek a better world, with the constantly renewed momentum of the Holy Spirit. ==See also==