John Allen's Word on this week's Marriage and the Family conference

This week's Word from Rome by John Allen primarily treats the major conference that was held in Rome this week entitled Loving Human Love: The Heritage of John Paul II on Marriage and the Family sponsored by the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family. I haven't had a chance to read through the whole thing but what I did read seemed informative and on-point:

"Recently, I bumped into a friend who works for the Vatican. I mentioned that I'd like to talk sometime about the major theological questions facing the church over the next five to 10 years, and without hesitation his first response was: "Anything to do with bioethics."

"No area challenges the church today with greater urgency than the moral and doctrinal dilemmas surrounding sexuality, marriage, the family and human life, challenges generated both by new technology and by changing cultural standards." More...

Another quote that caught my eye:

"To the extent that Scola and Ouellet represent decisive voices in the church's bioethical debate, it would therefore seem the tendency will be to search for creative new ways to explain traditional teachings to the modern world, drawing heavily on the thought of John Paul II, rather than attempts to revise those teaching."

Really, you don't say?