“considers infanticide – i.e., killing babies after they are born - to be a serious social and anthropological problem, and not the widespread practice of abortion on demand which is also touted in ‘the world’ as a necessity in order to avoid over-population of the planet. Which is what the Church had been fighting all along!” It seems incredible, but perhaps we should become used to such ideas and stop being amazed, when, after all, the Pontifical Academy for Life now counts abortion advocates among its members.
The decision of the General Secretariat of the Bishops’ Synod to open an Internet site and publish a questionnaire for all young people, no one excluded, responds to the need to involve them as much as possible in the synodal path that the Church is taking on the theme ‘The youth, faith, and vocational discernment’. On the one hand, the site provides them with instruments to enable their participation to be more aware and committed. On the other hand, it gives visibility to initiatives in which they themselves are the protagonists. The site will feature information, new knowledge, experiences and initiatives. Through the questionnaire, young people will be able to have their voice heard, their sensibility and their faith, but also their doubts and criticisms, so that this may reach their pastors, as Pope Francis asked them in the letter he wrote to start the synodal process. The questionnaire online is different from that found in the Preparatory Document – different in purpose, different in the questions asked. It is addressed directly to young people so they may be able to share their life, their desires, their fears. The questions are designed so that the respondents are thereby able to present themselves, how they see themselves and rthe world around them, how they relate to others, including in their important life decisions. They are asked to express what they feel about religion, faith and the Church. The final series of questions focuses attention on their online life. At the end, the respondent is asked to say something important about himself that has not been touched upon by the questionnaire.