The following comes from an October 9 Catholic News Agency article by Elise Harris:

A controversial working document for the Vatican’s synod on the family took a hard hit from numerous bishops who’ve called the text overly negative, unclear, and possibly inaccurate in its translations.

“While various elements of the (document) are admirable, we found much of the text to be flawed or inadequate,” says a new report from group “D” of the four English-speaking synod circles.

The document – officially called an Instrumentum Laboris – also fell short “especially in its theology, clarity, trust in the power of grace, its use of scripture and its tendency to see the world through overwhelmingly Western eyes,” the bishops said Friday.

Divided by language into 13 groups with around 20 members each, one small group is in German, four in English, three in Spanish, two in Italian and three in French. Groups were determined by both the language of participants and the requests of the synod fathers.

In their report, the English-speaking “D” group said that rather than beginning with the failures and challenges of the family, the document ought to begin “with hope,” since many families are already successfully living the Gospel’s message about marriage.

“If marriage is a vocation, which we believe it is, we can’t promote vocations by talking first about its problems.”

Also noted by the group was the lack of serious reflection on gender ideology, the role of men and fathers as well as women, the destructive nature of pornography, the misuse of technology and pastoral care for the differently-abled.

With the instrumentum’s presentation appearing “chaotic, without inherent logic,” both Pope Francis “and the people of the Church deserve a better text, one in which ideas are not lost in the confusion,” they said.