Colm Flynn reports for EWTN News Nightly on the important themes being discussed at the Synod on Synodality and the report being drafted in this stage of the Synodal process. Questions of sexuality and women's participation in the life of the Church remain emotional and germane issues in the Synodal discussion. EWTN News Nightly brings you voices from the Synod on Synodality that are asking the discussion to go a bit deeper to the "big issues" of the actual needs of those in the Church and the problem that throngs have left or are leaving the Church.

It is the third week of the Synod at the Vatican, and they have begun work on the final phase of this year's Synod. The gathering today opened with an emotional appeal from Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe, saying, "We are called to embrace a deeper sense of who we are as the improbable friends of the Lord, whose scandalous friendship reaches across every boundary. Many of us wept when we heard of that young woman who committed suicide because she was bisexual and did not feel welcomed in the Church. I hope it changed us. The Holy Father reminded us that all are welcome."

Yet, this is just one moment of many focused on the hot-button issues facing the Church.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher from Sydney, Australia, spoke exclusively to EWTN News, saying he thinks too much time is being spent on these issues when really the focus should be on bringing people back to the faith.

Archbishop Fisher spoke about the "Nones," those "who say they have no faith in the sense that they tick the 'no religion' box. Half the young people are saying they don't have any faith." He said this is the big issue for the Church today. In contrast, he said, the number of women who desire to be deacons is "trivial when you look at the huge loss of faith we are seeing in entire generations."

Fellow Australian and Synod participant Professor Renée Köhler-Ryan echoed the Archbishop's feelings. She spoke at the Synod press conference yesterday, saying the issue of female priesthood is a "niche issue that does not reflect the needs of women today."

She stated further, "As a woman, I'm not focused at all on the fact that I'm not a priest. I think that there's too much emphasis placed on this question, and what happens when we put too much emphasis on this question is that we forget about what women, for the most part, throughout the world, need."

This week, Pope Francis also spoke directly about the Synod in an interview with Spanish TV. He talked about how the Church must move forward, saying the Church needs to change but change how it proclaims unchanging truth.

"The Church has to change. Let's think of the ways it has changed since the Council until now and the way it must continue changing its ways in the way to propose an unchanging truth. And it has to keep changing along the way as challenges are met. That is why the core of change is fundamentally pastoral, without recanting the essence of the Church."

This week, participants are also working on the Synod's final report for this session. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, whom Pope Francis appointed to guide the Synod's discussions as Relator General, gave some initial indications on what must happen after the finish of this session.

He said, "The end of this first session of the XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops coincides with the beginning of an equally important phase of the process: the time between the two sessions, which will see us committed to returning to the Churches from which we come the fruits of our work."

(Adapted by Jacob Stein)