Pope Francis said he wanted to respond to a "storm of chattering" that had developed around his expansion of synod membership.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s doctrine chief, announced today that “based on the analysis so far…there is still no room for a positive decision” on ordaining women deacons.

The wide-ranging debate between Mr. Vance and Mr. Walz covered climate climate change, immigration, abortion, the economy and the state of democracy, among other issues.

Pope Francis has decided that this year, we will be discussing not any series of topics—clericalism women’s ordination to the diaconate, or ministry to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics—but synodality itself.

“Those who arrogantly claim to have the exclusive right to hear the voice of the Lord cannot hear it,” Pope Francis said at the opening Mass of the Synod on Synodality.

The Catholic Church cannot be credible in its mission of proclaiming Christ unless it acknowledges its mistakes and bends down “to heal the wounds we have caused by our sins,” Pope Francis said.

I have admittedly rolled my eyes at the language the Vatican uses around the Synod on Synodality. But it should prompt all Catholics to ask themselves: Do I know what I am really trying to say?

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, a former Vatican doctrinal chief, cast sharp criticism on the Synod on Synodality days ahead of the synod’s second and final session starting Oct. 2.

The Vatican’s decision to expel 10 important members from the once-powerful Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a scandal-plagued society of apostolic life founded in Peru in 1971, was received with shock by many in Peru.

Some members of the Synod of Bishops may need to let go of old ways of doing things and others may need to let go of a desire to make everything new, Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe said at the pre-synod retreat.