Top Vatican congregations are going to gather intellectuals from around the globe, representing various religious beliefs, to consider the complementarity of man and woman in marriage.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will host the colloquium in Vatican City this Nov. 17-19, in cooperation with the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
The global, interreligious meeting will feature representatives from 14 religious traditions and 23 countries. The colloquium will be opened by Pope Francis.
Sessions will be opened successively by the leadership of each of the cooperating Vatican offices, followed by the presentations and witness testimonies of leading religious figures and scholars.
Each session will also premiere one of six short films treating men and women and marriage the world over.
Each film features a variety of interviews with young and old, single and married, women and men, lay and religious, from many cultures, continents and religions.
Topics range from the beauty of the union between the man and the woman, to the loss of confidence in marital permanence, to the cultural and economic woes that follow upon the disappearance of marriage.
The colloquium Web site is http://www.humanum.it.
The site contains information about the agenda, the presenters and the films.
