Pope Francis opens Vatican summit, urges respectful dialogue

Pope Francis on Wednesday opened a global summit of Catholic leaders, which has postponed action on divisive issues such as women's ordination until 2025, with a warning that delegates should not seek to foist pet agendas onto the assembly.

At a Mass in St. Peter's Square to open the event, known as a Synod of Bishops, the pope told the hundreds of cardinals, bishops and lay people taking part not to treat their contributions at the month-long summit as "agendas to be imposed".

"Otherwise we will end up locking ourselves into dialogues among the deaf, where participants seek to advance their own causes or agendas without listening to others," the pontiff said.

The Vatican summit, which aims to chart the future of the Catholic Church and includes 368 voting members from more than 110 countries, drew fierce censure from the pope's conservative critics at an earlier session last year.

The critics expressed particular concern about plans to discuss blessings for same-sex couples and to allow women to be deacons -- Church ministers who are ordained like priests but cannot celebrate Mass.

But criticism from conservative quarters has been dulled this year as most of the hottest issues at the summit have been assigned to study groups that will make final reports to Francis, who is 87, only next June.

Francis told the delegates on Wednesday they should be "ready even to sacrifice (their) own point of view in order to give life to something new".

The pope expanded the synod last year to include women as full voting members for the first time. Nearly 60 women are voting members again in 2024.

Also included are 16 "fraternal delegates" from other Christian denominations, who attend as observers. Discussions take place largely behind closed doors.

The 2024 assembly is scheduled to vote on a final document on Oct. 26. The pope will then decide whether to issue his own text, with possible doctrinal changes, but probably only after receiving the study group reports in mid-2025.