There’s an old joke that a camel is what you get when a horse has been designed by a committee. The synod’s final document bears the camel-like appearance of committee drafting. Maybe that‘s a good thing.

“The second and final session of the Synod on Synodality has just concluded,” Father James Martin writes. “And what I noticed most this year is how much the attitude toward L.G.B.T.Q. issues has changed—and for the good.”

At the end of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, Jesuitical spoke with Cardinal Joseph Tobin about the synod’s final document, which kept open the question of women’s access to the diaconate.

Pope Francis delivered a homily during the closing Mass for the Synod of Bishops in St. Peter's Basilica Oct. 27.

"I do not intend to publish an apostolic exhortation. What we have approved is enough," Pope Francis said. Instead, he ordered the publication of the synod's final document.

Fr. James Martin shares his five insights from the synod's final document, just approved by Pope Francis and published by the Vatican.