When asked whether the women in the synod hall felt they were being heard, Sister Pat Murray replied as any tough nun might: “We have been well able to make our point and use our time and space well.”

On “Inside the Vatican, host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell sit down in Rome to cover the second week of the synod, which covered contentious issues in the church, such as the inclusion of L.G.B.T. people and women deacons.

In this episode of “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle interviews Julia McStravog, a senior advisor on the Synod on Synodality at the U.S.C.C.B., to get an inside look into how the U.S. church organized itself to carry out the national and continental phases of the synod, and how those phases inform the ongoing meeting in Rome.

Serving on the altar has formed my experience as a woman in the church.

At the Synod on Synodality’s Roman meetings, lay men and women have both been included for the first time as full, voting members. But, argues the Rev. Louis Cameli, if this synod is not to be a “parliament,” as Pope Francis often warns, perhaps there should be no voting in the synod at all.

Preachers and those in ministry confront a common dilemma: “We never live up to what we want to be,” says Patricia Bruno, O.P. “However, I think the preaching helps direct our own lives,” she adds. “It’s hard to say something in public that you don’t really believe.”