Recognize, Interpret, Choose: the Instrumentum Laboris of the Synod of Bishops on Young People centers on these three verbs. The document is divided into three parts: the first analyzes the condition of contemporary youth; the second offers reading keys for carrying out a discernment on important questions, and the third offers orientations “to help the Synod Fathers take a stand on the directions and decisions to be taken.”
The introduction to the document bluntly states that “taking care of young people is not optional” and goes on to say that this is the starting point for discernment, understood as a way of being in the world, a fundamental attitude and a work method that offers pastoral tools for pointing out to young people paths that can be follow today. The document ends with a renewed appeal for holiness: “the unique and unifying vocation for all of humanity, because no-one is potentially excluded from this goal of existence.”
The Instrumentum Laboris, which offers “guidelines and suggestions that are not pre-packaged,” will form the basis of the work of the XVI General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, scheduled from 2-28 October 2 on the theme: Youth, Faith and Vocational Discernment. The purpose of the event is to offer young people a concrete compass in a “culture of indecision” like the present one–a culture that considers a choice for life to be impossible or even senseless.