TWENTY-THIRD GENERAL CONGREGATION

VATICAN CITY, OCT 25, 2001 (VIS) - At 5:05 p.m. today, in the presence of the Holy Father and 235 synod fathers, the Twenty-third General Congregation took place, for the presentation of and balloting on the Message of the Synod of Bishops to the People of God. The president delegate on duty was Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

At the beginning of this Congregation, the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Jan Pieter Schotte, C.I.C.M., communicated the results of the first balloting for the Post-Synodal Council. None of the Synod Fathers obtained the absolute majority required in the first balloting. The ballots for the second vote (which will be determined through relative majority) will be distributed at the beginning of the Twenty-fourth General Congregation, tomorrow morning, October 26.

The president and the vice-president of the Commission for the preparation of the Message, Archbishop Estanislao Esteban Karlic of Parana, Argentina, and Bishop Olivier de Berranger of Saint-Denis, France, read the second draft of the Message of the Synod: The former read the first part in Italian and the latter read the second part in French. The Message has been prepared in five languages.

The voting on the Message then took place, followed by the interventions of 27 Synod Fathers who suggested several stylistic modifications to the text.

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