Vatican City, October 11, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Fourteen small groups of members of the Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment discussed the Instrumentum Laboris (IL), or working document, guiding the Synod’s deliberations this week.

Divided by language groups, there were four English-language conversations, three French, two Spanish, one German, and one Portuguese. For many of the participants, these were foreign, or second, languages.

The reports of these sessions were largely difficult to read; most were verbose and poorly organized. However, certain themes and tendencies were clear.

First, the English-speaking groups were concerned that the IL had underemphasized faith in Christ and the Church’s teaching office. One of the English-speaking groups noted that the IL did not mention chastity.

Second, of all the groups, only the one moderated by pro-LGBT Cardinal Cupich explicitly questioned the Church’s emphasis on the traditional nuclear family. Cupich’s group went so far as to suggest that the Church does not accompany young people in unusual familial circumstances.

Third, as expected, there were some rumblings about “updating” the Church’s teaching on sexuality, particularly from the French-speaking Group B, the German-speaking Group, and Cardinal Maradiaga’s Spanish-speaking Group A.

Maradiaga’s group posited that the young have the “right” to make “mistakes” and encouraged pastors to “accompany” the young without reproof, saying “an empathetic Church is one that accompanies despite errors, without imposing, prohibiting, or demanding...”

Fourth, most of the Groups were interested in the role the internet and social media play in the lives of youth people although two Groups pointed out that not all young people have access to the internet. Several were quite concerned about the “digitalization” of culture.