VATICAN CITY — According to the official working document for the upcoming synod of bishops on youth, the major questions for young people ahead of the October discussion surround issues of sexuality and gender, the role of women and the desire for a Church that knows how to listen.

The instrumentum laboris (in Italian) for the Oct. 3-28 Synod of Bishops on “Young People, the Faith and the Discernment of Vocation,” was published June 19, and includes contributions from both young people themselves, and bishops’ conferences.

Key issues highlighted in the document are not only increasing cultural instability and violent conflicts, but many young people, both inside and outside of the Church, are divided when it comes to topics related to sexuality.

The document points to a “metamorphosis of the human condition” some analysts say the world is undergoing due to the rapid pace at which cultural and anthropological changes are happening.

In this regard, a key challenge for the Church that the document cited is the body and topics related to human sexuality. The body, the text reads, has always been at an “intersection between nature and culture,” yet new biomedical technologies have given rise to different concepts of the body.

On one hand, the document points to the trend of technological experimentation, saying there is an increasing push for the integration of “body and machine, between neuronal and electronic circuits, which find their icon in the cyborg, favoring a technocratic approach to the body.” Read more via NC Register