Consider this a reference post.

Tuesday (at 7am Eastern, not 6am…forgot about the time change), the Pope’s Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis ("Sacrament of Charity" or "Sacrament of Love"), a final document based on the reflections of the fall, 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, will be issued. The first link there will take you to the page on which the document will be posted. If you’re so inclined, the page with all most of the pertinent published discussions and reports from the Synod are here.

At the Synod, the bishops came up with a list of fifty "proposals" which were never officially published on the Vatican website.

The official Latin text of The Final List of Propositions of the Eleventh Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, subject to individual vote by the synod fathers, is intended for the Supreme Pontiff, to whom it will be duly submitted. By its very nature, this text is confidential and will not be published, in keeping with the consultative character of the synod’s work, since the text decidedly contains recommendations.

This time only, the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has graciously allowed  the provisional and unofficial Italian-language text, done by the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops,  to be published in the Holy See Press Office Bulletin.

The propositions, in their unofficial English translation, are available on Zenit, and broken into small bits (unfortunately) are here: Propositions 1-4, 5-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, 26-30, 31-36, 37-40, 41-45, 46-50.

I would imagine those propositions would be interesting mainly after the Exhortation is released, by way of comparison.

If you’re still fuzzy on exactly what an "Apostolic Exhortation" is, here’s the list ofJohn Paul II’s. The most well-known is probably Familiaris Consortio.

We have no idea what is in this document, and some have wondered about the time it has taken to issue it – almost a year and a half. That has certainly heightened the intrigue, along with Benedict”s well-known interest in and concern about the liturgy, as well as the Motu Proprio rumors. But just in terms of time frame, again, using Familiaris Consortio as a reference point – the Synod "On The Christian Family in the Modern World" was held from 9/26-10/25, 1980, and the Post-synodal document, FC, has an issue date of 11/22, 1981 – a year and a month.

For what it’s worth.

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