Pope Francis asked forgiveness from journalists trying to cover the monthlong meeting but insisted “a certain fasting from public words” would be needed to ensure the proper spiritual atmosphere for synod members.

Pope Francis did not attend Vatican II, but from the beginning of his pontificate, he set out with determination to continue its implementation.

I have spent the better part of the past two years trying to understand what synodality is. Today, it finally started to click.

I believe that the apostolic exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” holds the key to understanding Pope Francis’ hopes for the synod. And that is why I’m hopeful about the synod.

“The five ‘dubia’ deal exclusively with the perennial doctrine and discipline of the church, not the agenda of the pope and certainly not the agenda of the five of us cardinals,” Cardinal Burke said Oct. 3 at a conference in Rome.

At the opening of the General Assembly of the Synod, Pope Francis warned against a vision made up of “human strategies, political calculations or ideological battles.”