"Doesn’t a man need two feet in order to walk? Well, to advance, he only raises one foot when he is sure that the other one remains firmly planted on the ground. This is, in my opinion, how the Synod will proceed: walking in order to discover new forms and experiences, without abandoning anything that is reliable, safe and effective." Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, said this in an interview for L’Osservatore Romano, on July 11th, explain how the Church is advancing towards the Synod in the light of the recently presented Instrumentum laboris.
 
Basis for the work of the Synod, the Instrumentum laboris—continued the Cardinal—is not a magisterial document, nor a doctrinal or pastoral presentation of the issue. It is the synthesis of processed data, information, advice, real life, personal, community and pastoral experiences of the objective reality of families today, with its lights and shadows. This elaboration presents the current status of the family, in all its aspects to which still others will be added in the second stage of the process that will end with the Ordinary General Assembly the Synodal in 2015. The Synod Fathers have the responsibility—he concludes—of examining, studying and comparing this reality, in comparison with the teaching and discipline of the Church—clearly described in the first part of the document—, and then indicating new or renewed pastoral paths to meet the indicated challenges."