With the conclusion of the first phase of the synod on the family, many of us find ourselves excited and almost "impatient", waiting for the text agreed upon by the bishops and experts.

Over and above the multiple and even contradictory media messages that have bombarded the networks, teletypes and talk shows throughout these weeks, the veracity of information awaits at this time a clear document in which the terms of the problems, proposals and orientations (even if only provisional) that respond to what the Holy Spirit says today to the Church about the family appear, so that the Church herself can continue to pronounce the words that evangelize the basic nucleus of society, and thus the family itself feels and ends up being an authentic evangelizer.

Perhaps the two messages most emphasized by the media, repeated ad nauseam, are those calling for "mercy" for the divorced and remarried, who according to some should be admitted to Eucharistic Communion, and a rethinking of homosexual persons that would change the doctrine of the Catechism of the Church on chastity.

Analyzing the monotonous media message, I would like to focus on three news items that have been relegated, since their voices put forward different and discrepant proposals in the face of the establishment imposed by the "politically correct".

The first refers to the testimonies offered by couples who have tried to live coherently their family challenges in a heroic way, being faithful to the Gospel. That is: the witness of families who have existentially assumed the call to marital holiness recalled by the magisterium of the Council.

The second: the testimony of Cardinal Caffarra in his pastoral accompaniment of divorced couples while maintaining the ecclesial praxis of acceptance and abstinence from Eucharistic Communion in order to protect the truth of the signs. The cardinal theologian testified that in his close and clear accompaniment of hundreds of couples from a doctrinal perspective, his experience corroborates that they do not feel discriminated against, and that on many occasions they have expressed a sense of gratitude to him because they have come to understand the meaning of this sacramental discipline .

Finally, I was struck by proposal of the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna when he declared to the media: "If we talk about the family, we should always talk not only about couples, but also about children, because the family is everything, marriage and children". Christopher Schönborn went so far as to suggest that the Synod should actively involve children (he did not indicate their ages) whose voices should be heard by the Synod Fathers and the experts.

In the years that I have worked as a chaplain and professor both in centers of teaching average and in the university, I have been able to accompany children, adolescents and young people who suffer the pain and confusion caused by marital disagreements and breakups.

Many of them, with an uncommon maturity, consider how to help their parents to rebuild their marriage. I have seen young people pray and offer fasting for their parents, and others who face dialogue with their parents and accompany them to go to family mediators, experts in family pastoral care or priests.

In my college years, each time I meeting with girls and boys who struggle to recompose family fractures by helping their parents to divert their gaze from reproaches and animosity and to fix their eyes on the common goal , on the fruit of their initial love in the children who are still there calling them to love each other.

challenge In the next phase of the Synod on the family, would it not be opportune to have the presence of these young people who have struggled to rebuild the love and unity of their parents? Would it not be fascinating to promote, through the media and the pastoral care of the Church, a new mercy towards them, accompanying them in their evangelizing endeavors? I think that this "human and manifestly Christianresource " would greatly enrich the Synod's conclusions, and it seems to me that it is only fair that the young people involved experience, more and more, the closeness and mercy of the Church, and the recognition of society and the media.