The Vatican described the retreat as “a propitious occasion for reflection and prayer, as well as an occasion for encounter and reconciliation.”

The advisory panels should become a means of assistance and counsel for their respective national bishops’ conferences. “The members of these groups can instruct, with their own experience, how to deal with the issue of abuse, especially when it comes to listening to victims and accompanying them.”

The delegates requested that the church declare that “human dignity implies the respect of every person as created by God” and “hence criminalization of L.G.B.T. people is today a manifestation of irrational hatred for that which is different from the norm and that homophobia is, in effect, a feeling of hatred and rejection which the church condemns, wherever it takes place.”

Could paying attention to the Vatican regularly become a spiritual practice and put the headlines you see about the church in context?

The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has rejected an appeal by the now-former Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron of Agana, Guam, upholding its judgment of finding him guilty of abuse against minors.

"History was not built in one day; history is a long process. And I think we have to put ourselves in this perspective."