VATICAN – Twelve synod members have been named to a commission to draft the final report summarizing the discussion at the Synod of Bishops on young people. The report will be given Pope Francis.

VATICAN – Young Catholics, particularly clerics, need better formation on sexuality, affectivity, and the body, Canada's Cardinal Gérald Lacroix told reporters Tuesday, speaking about the 2018 Synod of Bishops.

VATICAN – Despite many positive and joyful moments during the Synod of Bishops on young people, bishops also have set aside the agenda to discuss the serious scandals and unfolding allegations affecting the church, two synod fathers said.

ROME – The president of the U.S. bishops' conference welcomed Pope Francis' pledge to fight attempts to cover up cases of sexual abuse and to stop offering special treatment to bishops who have committed or covered up abuse.

Frustrated by the Church’s inability to defuse long-running clergy sex scandals, Pope Francis has summoned the worldwide presidents of Catholic bishops conferences to the Vatican in February to find better ways to protect children and eradicate predatory priests.

VATICAN – The Vatican has announced that five more Canadians — a cardinal, two priests and two laity  — have been selected to participate in the upcoming Synod of Bishops on youth.

VATICAN – The Synod of Bishops increasingly should be a structure for listening to the Catholic faithful, demonstrating a local bishop's concern for the entire church and a means of expressing all the bishops' unity with the pope, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN – To the list of members of the Synod of Bishops elected by national bishops' conferences, Pope Francis added cardinals from 14 countries, bishops from another 10 nations, as well as 10 priests who be full voting members of the gathering.

VATICAN – Pope Francis met with members of the preparatory council for the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon region, which will take place in Rome in October 2019.

BEIRUT – Bishop Joseph Absi was elected the new Melkite patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and All the East during the Melkite Catholic Synod at Ain-Traz, Lebanon.

TORONTO – In six months Cardinal Thomas Collins’ misgivings about the 2015 Synod on the Family have been banished by a deeply scriptural Synod summation from Pope Francis.

Family talk in the Church doesn’t start with all that can go wrong.

BEIRUT - Syriac Catholic bishops, meeting in Lebanon during their annual Synod, called for a diplomatic solution to achieve peace in Syria and Iraq.

VATICAN CITY - Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said an apostolic exhortation on the family following the recently concluded Synod of Bishops could be released soon.

In his closing address at the Synod of Bishops on the Family, Pope Francis said the meeting of Church leaders was never intended to solve all the problems that afflict modern families. The Synod, he said, was a forum to study the family and assess its many challenges “fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand.”