Pope Francis has called an extraordinary session of the Synod of Bishops to take place in twelve months time that will discuss the family, which the Vatican and other Catholic leaders believe is under attack by secularist trends.

The Vatican announced today that the Synod gathering will take place in October 2014 under the theme, “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelisation,” the Tablet reports.

The announcement comes less than a week after the Pope held three days of inaugural meetings with his eight-member Council of Cardinals, a group he has assembled to advise him on governing the universal Church and reforming the Roman Curia.

During the meeting he and the council discussed the possibility of holding the next Synod on the family.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi SJ said that Francis was interested in looking at the “anthropological theme” that dealt with “the human person and the family in the light of the Gospel”.

Today’s announcement of the extraordinary synod- only the third to take place since Vatican II  came as the permanent council of the Synod finished two days of meetings.

The Synod usually meets every three or four years in “general assembly”, but recent popes have also convened a number of “special” assemblies to deal with certain geographical areas and “extraordinary” assemblies to deal with themes requiring a particularly urgent response.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has told young people that they must have the “courage” to get married and have children despite a culture that emphasises “individual rights” over family.

He also suggested that ‘selfishness’ in many cases is responsible for couples splitting up.

The Pope was speaking in Assisi during a question and answer session with young people.

“It takes courage to start a family,” he said, adding that the world will put obstacles in the way of those who want to do so, by “privileging individual rights rather than the family”.

He criticised the culture of divorce, saying: “You know that marriage is for a lifetime? ‘Yes, we love each other, but we’ll stay together as long as love lasts. When it’s over, we go our separate ways.’ That is selfishness.”