Delegates are officially barred from discussing specifics of the conversations inside the Vatican's synod hall. But members told NCR that hot-button issues are being discussed both inside the room and on the sidelines.

When Anna Nusslock showed up at Providence St. Joseph Hospital 15 weeks pregnant and in severe pain, a doctor delivered devastating news: The twins she and her husband had so desperately wanted were not viable. Further, her own health was in danger, and she needed an emergency abortion to prevent hemorrhaging and infection. St. Joseph's, in the small Northern California coastal city of Eureka, refused to provide the care she required because doctors could detect fetal "heart tones."  

Three U.S. cardinals who met with Pope Francis aren't saying what was on the agenda. A likely topic, writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters, is the need to fill the many vacancies in U.S. metropolitan archdioceses.