The synod on the family that ended on October 25 made headlines worldwide and sparked much discussion. It concluded by asking Pope Francis to write a magisterial document on the family.   

It ended well and all that remained to do was for the Vatican’s Publishing House (LEV) to publish the synod’s final report in the various languages so that Catholics worldwide could know what had actually happened. 

That should have been a simple, smooth operation, but America has learned that LEV did not get it right and so has been instructed to destroy its first print run because for some reason, yet to be explained, it published the Italian version of that final report but without the results of the voting on each paragraph. 

It will be remembered that after the final vote in the synod hall on the evening of October 24, Pope Francis gave instructions that the text be published together with the votes for each of the 94 paragraphs. He wanted the entire Catholic community to know exactly what happened at the three-week long synod, which marked the culmination of a two-year discussion in the church worldwide. It was an act of maximum transparency.

That same evening, immediately after the synod concluded its work, the Holy See’s Press Office followed his instructions and released to the international media the full text with the results of the votes for each of the 94 paragraphs.

More recently, St Paul’s Italian publishing house did exactly the same. It was surprising then that when the Vatican’s own publishing house printed the Italian version of the final document it did not include the results of the voting. It is not clear why that happened against the Pope’s expressed directive.

It is now expected that the different language editions published by LEV will all contain the texts and the votes.