“We have a picture of what the goal looks like—the dignity of women, women feeling appreciated, their gifts being used—but how do you get there?”

“Jesus finds people where they are, but he never leaves them where they are.”

“We take people where they are, walking with them, moving forward,” Cardinal Blase Cupich said.

Though the current synod appears to lack the sort of drama and high-stakes debates of the previous two, the role of conscience appears to be a common thread.

First, can the synod use the term “L.G.B.T.” in its documents? Second, can the synod acknowledge that gay couples can form a “family”?

The church must go out and encounter young people “in detention centers, at the borders.”

I wonder what you would feel if you knew me. If you saw what the lives you ask us to lead are actually like.

The delay appears to be about his public comments on homosexuality and the women’s diaconate.

I’m formed by my experiences with members of the Project: Gay and Catholic, and by my listening to a lot of Christians in Catholic parishes.

You can’t do everything, but you can do something.