Contact: Kevin Wandra, 404-788-1276

MEDIA ADVISORY, Sept. 26, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ -- An international tele-press conference that will feature a panel of prominent Catholics who will discuss issues related to the forthcoming Extraordinary Synod on the Family. The Synod, which begins October 5, is expected to address such topics as:

• The pastoral care of the family;
   
• The influence of the media in the popular culture on the institution of marriage;
   
• communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics;
   
• The single parent family;
   
• The indissolubility of marriage;
   
• cohabitation and contraception;
   
• The education of children in irregular marriages, and other important pastoral matters.

The distinguished panel will specifically be on hand to discuss four books Ignatius Press is publishing appropriately timed with the Synod:

• REMAINING IN THE TRUTH OF CHRIST: Marriage and Communion in the Catholic Church;
   
• THE HOPE OF THE FAMILY: A Dialogue With Cardinal Gerhard Muller;
   
• THE GOSPEL OF THE FAMILY: Going Beyond Cardinal Kasper's Proposal in the Debate on Marriage, Re-Marriage and Communion in the Church; and
   
• ON HUMAN LIFE: Humanae Vitae.

For more information and resources on each book, please visit www.synodresources.com.

WHO – Panelists confirmed to participate in the tele-press conference include:

• U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, the prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature and the former archbishop of St. Louis, who contributed an essay to REMAINING IN THE TRUTH OF CHRIST.
   
• Father Robert Dodaro, O.S.A, president of the Patristic Institute in Rome, where he also is a professor. He is the editor of REMAINING IN THE TRUTH OF CHRIST and the author of Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine.
   
• Dr. Stephan Kampowski, an associate professor of philosophical anthropology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome. He is the co-author of THE GOSPEL OF THE FAMILY.
   
• Dr. James Hitchcock, professor emeritus of history at St. Louis University, which he attended as an undergraduate. He received his masters and doctorate degrees from Princeton University. He wrote the new afterword to ON HUMAN LIFE: Humanae Vitae, and has authored several books, including The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life; The Recovery of the Sacred; What Is Secular Humanism; and Catholicism and Modernity: Confrontation or Capitulation?
   
• Father Joseph Fessio, founder and editor of Ignatius Press, which is the primary English-language publisher of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s writings and the publisher of Catholic World Report. Fr. Fessio wrote his dissertation under the direction of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (then Professor Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger).
   
• Helen Hull Hitchcock, founding director of Women for Faith & Family and editor of its quarterly journal, Voices. She is also editor of the Adoremus Bulletin, a monthly publication of Adoremus - Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, of which she is a co-founder.

WHEN – 11:45 a.m. ET Tuesday, Sept. 30.

WHERE – Tele-press conference line. Register here.

For more information, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com) of Carmel Communications.